


There Was An Attempt

by alphabets0up



Category: Red Velvet (K-pop Band), TWICE (Band)
Genre: F/F, Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Friends to Lovers, Maybe - Freeform, arianaxyeri is now a tag, but mostly yeri suffering because seulrene is useless, do i have regrets - Freeform, dubchaeng ft. katie, rv ft. twice
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-13
Updated: 2020-06-19
Packaged: 2021-03-01 21:13:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 19,768
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23633662
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alphabets0up/pseuds/alphabets0up
Summary: In which Yeri claims to be the 'Ultimate Matchmaker' and promises to help Irene get the message across to a very dense Seulgi.It doesn't work out the first few times, but Yeri lives like a winner, and her ego just won't let her give up.
Relationships: Ariana Grande/Kim Yerim | Yeri, Bae Joohyun | Irene/Kang Seulgi, Im Nayeon/Yoo Jeongyeon, Kim Dahyun & Son Chaeyoung, Kim Dahyun/Minatozaki Sana, Park Sooyoung | Joy/Son Seungwan | Wendy
Comments: 50
Kudos: 216





	1. Attempt -

**Author's Note:**

> enjoy this cancerous idea that forced itself into my mind?? i guess
> 
> this will be short but no promises on consistent updates sldskljks

"C'mon unnie, I'm like, the best in business! I’m the Ultimate Matchmaker!" Yeri's eyes are sparkling with mischief as she speaks. Irene doesn’t trust it at all, "I'll totally help you and Seulgi unnie get together!”

"As if you can help me," Irene scoffs, frowning at the maknae who somehow managed to wrestle out her (not so) secret crush on Seulgi out of her. (Wendy was too nice to say anything, and Joy didn't care.) Said crush was recording in the other room, while the rest were just lounging around, waiting for their turn.

“I can and I will,” Yeri says solemnly, “I got Sana unnie to confess to Dahyun!” She follows up. 

Joy facepalms at that, and Irene’s immediately skeptical.

Irene raises a brow, “And how’d that go?”

“Not that great because Dahyun’s an idiot, but I promise I can help!” Yeri says much too eagerly, practically yelling at this point to deflect any of Irene’s protests.

"We gang gang unnie, I won't leave you to be useless. You've been doing that for too long already! You’re practically 30!” Yeri says, and Joy almost snorts her drink out through her nose. 

Wendy's expression quickly changes from attentive to utterly disappointed as soon as she hears the words 'gang gang' come out of Yeri's mouth.

"I have not! And I’m not that old!" Irene squawks indignantly, "Wait, what?" Irene looks absolutely lost, and Yeri sighs. Sometimes, she forgets that Irene's ten years her senior.

"It's like ohana," Yeri tries to explain while Joy's already cackling, "Ohana means gang gang, and gang gang means no one’s gonna be yeeted."

"...Yeet? Gang gang??" Irene repeats cluelessly, narrowing her eyes at the foreign words.

"...Please stop hanging out with Chaeyoung and Dahyun," Wendy says with distaste, restraining herself from disowning the girl entirely. She turns to leave the room, dragging an even more confused Irene with her.

"Okay boomers, have it your way!" Yeri yells as Wendy closes the door.

Yeri turns to Joy, who's still drinking her daily dose of diabetes called Starbucks.

"I'm glad we're on the same page," Yeri says, and Joy puts down her drink.

"I'm not helping you get them together," Joy remarks, "Can you imagine how disgusting they'll be?"

Yeri scoffs, briefly wondering why she expected something out of Park Sooyoung. She's just pretending to be a zoomer anyway, and it shows by the way she tries to fit in with her outdated TikToks.

The maknae visibly cringes, recalling Joy's attempts of being an eGirl before she manages to reply to the fossil.

"Yeah, but the sad puppy eyes from both of them is giving me depression. It's so easy, and they're just," Yeri makes vague gestures in the air, "So dense."

"Hm, that's true," Joy hums, "So what're you gonna do about it?" 

"A big brain move," Yeri says and whips out her phone, already texting dubchaeng.

* * *

Despite Twice’s and Red Velvet’s busy schedules, Yeri had miraculously found the time to visit Twice’s dorm. Fortunately Jihyo welcomed Yeri into their dorm warmly, much like how a gentle mother would welcome their daughter home.

Of course, Yeri can’t relate. Irene would only usually greet her with her endless nagging. But she can’t blame her mother, being single  _ and _ pining for the love of your life for that long must make you feel ten years older. The poor thing, Yeri just has to help her now before her forehead gets any more wrinkles.

"Okay, I think we should do this," Dahyun says with finality, shaking Yeri awake from her thoughts. 

The three of them stare at the paper full of vague crayon drawings (Chaeyoung wouldn’t let anyone near her fancy Caran D'ache pencils, so they’re stuck with children’s crayons) stuck to Chaeyoung's canvas. 

But before anyone can say anything else, the door slowly creaks open.

“Do I want to know?” Tzuyu asks as she takes one look at the strange drawings of stickmen and what looks to be candles, a giant claw, and a microphone that are all encircled in red crayon, for some reason.

“We’re trying to get my parents together,” Yeri shrugs, “Though I don’t think copying what your parents did as their first date would be a good idea,” Yeri says and looks to Chaeyoung and Dahyun.

“A romantic dinner date is a classic, it can’t fail! And Jeongyeon unnie’s dad’s restaurant is the best place for it!” Chaeyoung says eagerly, and Dahyun firmly nods in agreement as they go into detail to how that went. (Why they know everything is none of Yeri’s business, but if something stupid did happen, she hopes that they have a video of it.)

Instead of listening to them ramble on about Jeongyeon and Nayeon’s first dinner date there, Yeri turns to Tzuyu.

“What do you think?” Yeri asks Twice’s maknae who’s still awkwardly standing by the doorway.

“Don’t they go out for dinner together all the time?” Tzuyu asks after briefly contemplating, “What would make this any different?”

The maknae’s logic is sound, and Yeri’s inclined to agree until Chaeyoung butts into their conversation.

“Jeongyeon unnie’s dad gives us free food whenever we visit,” Chaeyoung says and looks straight into Yeri’s eyes with so much determination, the Red Velvet member wonders if Chaeyoung’s being starved by Jeongyeon for doing something stupid. 

“Okay, we’re doing it,” Yeri agrees all too easily, “If this doesn’t work, we have plan B anyway.”

“And plan C!” Dahyun chimes in happily.

Tzuyu sighs and leaves the room, leaving the trio to their own devices.

* * *

The next time Yeri’s in Twice’s dorm, it’s with Irene so that they could discuss the ‘battle plan.’ For some reason, the rest of Twice are eager to hear their plans too, and Irene’s too tired to shoo them away from meddling with her already abysmal situation.

As soon as Dubchaeng ft. Katie (Both Dahyun and Chaeyoung refused to call their trio yermdubchaeng because bros before hoes, and Chaeyoung doesn’t want a thirst trap like her getting in the middle of their relationship, apparently) had explained their plans of a Seulrene dinner date via their elaborate crayon drawings in the middle of Twice’s living room, Irene sighs, wondering why she agreed to this in the first place.

Irene clasps her hands and sighs. It’s not like her interest in Seulgi as more than a friend was ever a secret, anyway. Mina, from beside Irene seems to sense her discomfort. The Japanese softly taps Irene’s shoulder to send her an equally soft ‘fighting!’ her way.

“I’ve already tried that,” Irene finally starts, and pauses for a moment. She raises a finger when she sees Chaeyoung’s mouth open, “But you see, Seulgi is…”

Irene breathes in deeply, considering her words. Momo’s munching on a large piece of jokbal as she listens in, filling in the silence of the room. Sana tries to steal some from Momo, but her hand is immediately swatted away from the food.

“Seulgi is very, very cute,” She starts and shushes Yeri from laughing with a piercing glare, “But also very, very dense.”

“Oh,” Sana squeaks out, her full attention now on Irene, “So a Dahyun, basically,” The Japanese girl says with a cute pout.

“Yes, exactly,” Irene lets out a sigh of relief, thankful that someone can relate to her situation.

“A Dahyun?” Dahyun asks, “What about me?” Yeri suddenly feels even worse for Sana than she does with Irene.

“Nothing,” Sana says, “I just really love you,” Sana says sincerely.

“I--”

The sudden confession stops Dahyun in her tracks for a moment, and everyone is silent and tense as they watch their exchange. Sana looks especially nervous.

“Aww,” Dahyun suddenly coos, breaking the silence.

“I love you too, unnie! You’re the best!” Dahyun says and shoots finger hearts at Sana.

Sana’s smile dims a bit, but she moves to hug Dahyun anyway. From Sana’s left, Jihyo looks like she’s about to cry. Nayeon, Tzuyu, and Jeongyeon both look equally disappointed.

Meanwhile Yeri and Chaeyoung nosedive into the coffee table to complete their synchronized disappointment.

Irene has never related so much to Yeri’s strange actions until today.


	2. Attempt #1

As soon as Seulgi happily accepted Irene’s invite to dinner the day before, the leader’s been overthinking everything about her date. Sure, she and Seulgi may have gone out together to eat so many times in the past, but just the fact that this was going to be in a more romantic context terrified her. Irene didn’t want to lose Seulgi if she didn’t reciprocate her feelings, and decided to just end their friendship right then and there. Even though Irene knew Seulgi wouldn’t do such a thing, that still being a possibility scared her regardless.

With a shaky breath, Irene smooths out her clothes in a last ditch attempt to distract herself, and finally enters the restaurant.

Her confession is long overdue anyway.

* * *

“Okay, Irene’s in the restaurant,” Dahyun whispers into a mic attached to the collar of her shirt. The dubchaeng duo are hidden discreetly, tucked near the entrance of Jeongyeon’s dad’s restaurant disguised as… oversized succulents. 

Yeri couldn’t exactly find better disguises with the time constraints. (The maknae really didn’t think Irene would ask Seulgi out to dinner only a day after she dragged her to Twice’s dorm.) She supposes that her unnies would be too busy to notice them anyway, Yeri thinks as she sends dubchaeng a final thumbs up, trying to find a table that’s far enough from Irene’s spot.

When Yeri finally finds a table, she suddenly receives a text from Irene.

_ Mother Irene: can you just get out _

_ Mother Irene: i know it’s you sitting beside those plants _

Yeri scoffs at the offending messages, texting back about how this was  _ her _ idea and she has every right to stay as she waves over a waiter with her free hand.

“Want anything?” Yeri asks from her earpiece as she flips through the menu.

“Wan’ chocolate cake,” Dahyun mumbles out in reply.

“I’m getting whatever my bro is getting,” Chaeyoung follows up in a whisper.

“Bro,” Dahyun turns-- as much as she could with the restrictive costume-- to look at Chaeyoung with her eyes sparkling.

“Bro,” Chaeyoung immediately replies back as they reach for a fistbump, pretending to move in slow motion.

“Can you both just--”

The door to the restaurant suddenly opening makes the potted rappers jump in surprise, causing the large pots they’re crouched in to shake.

“Seulgi’s here!” Chaeyoung aggressively whispers. The amount of static that followed is almost enough to make Yeri go deaf as Dahyun and Chaeyoung try their best to stay balanced in their respective pots.

“Copy,” Yeri manages to reply, “I’ll start the music!”

With Yeri’s phone hijacking the restaurant’s bluetooth speaker system, (Boomers leave their things so unsecure, and yet they wonder why the kids are able to ‘hack’ into things?) the casual music is changed for a more romantic track. Yeri sees Irene quickly whipping her head to send a glare over to her.

Irene just doesn’t know how to appreciate her efforts, Yeri thinks to herself and scoffs when she sees Irene’s reddened cheeks when she finds Seulgi entering the establishment.

“Dahyun,” Yeri suddenly calls after suddenly having a lightbulb moment, “Do you think you can get up and play a romantic piece on the piano over there? The mood isn’t romantic enough even with the music.”

“Yeri,” The Red Velvet member has never heard Dahyun’s voice sound so deadpan before. She almost sounds like Tzuyu, “I’m dressed as a potted plant.”

“Who cares? Just say you’re a hipster  _ and _ a professional musician and just go with it!” Yeri tries to convince Dahyun.

“Uh guys,” Chaeyoung tries to interrupt their conversation.

“I don’t think hipsters wear this much green--” 

“Guys!” Chaeyoung almost shouts.

“What?” Yeri snaps back, annoyed at Chaeyoung’s tone.

“Seulgi uh, she--” The rapper tries to explain, but ends up making random very unplant-like gestures.

“What the actual  _ fuck _ .”

* * *

Irene’s jaw drops at the sight of Seulgi looking as flawless as ever. Of course, she did mention that they were going to a more fancy place so she had to get dressed, but Irene didn’t think Seulgi needing to take a detour instead of going with her to the restaurant meant this.

The object of her affections is dressed in a crisp suit, something Irene honestly wouldn’t expect Seulgi to wear off stage just for dinner. Maybe she finally got the hint, Irene thinks to herself as she stares with her mouth still agape. Before the leader can ascend to heaven any further, her thoughts are interrupted.

"Sorry I’m a bit late, unnie,” Seulgi’s smooth voice greets her.

“I hope you don't mind that I brought a friend with me. She's been dying to try this place out too," Seulgi suddenly continues with a sheepish grin on her face.

"Wait, what--" Irene's suddenly cut off by a familiar voice.

“Joohyun unnie!”

* * *

“Language!” Dahyun almost screams as she scolds Yeri for her outburst, “What’s Jisoo unnie doing here?!”

Yeri smacks her face onto the table, while her hands automatically shoot towards her phone, typing out a message.

_ Favorite daughter: did you TELL seulgi it was a date, between the TWO of you???? _

_ Mother Irene has seen your message. _

_ Favorite daughter: istg UNNIE _

_ Mother Irene: istg??? _

_ Favorite daughter: that’s your question? _

_ Favorite daughter: i don’t have a mother like you _

_ Mother Irene: [thumbs down] _

Yeri doesn’t know whether to throw her phone at Irene for not being clear with the terms of their date, or to chuck it at Seulgi for being  _ this _ dense. 

But before she can act on her thoughts, a waiter suddenly arrives at Yeri’s table with her food. Yeri nods as politely as she can, gripping her phone tightly in her hands before he leaves.

“Guys, get over here,” Yeri says exasperatedly, massaging her temples, “The cakes aren’t gonna eat themselves.” 

“Nice,” Chaeyoung says in reply, “Just tell the waiter dubchaeng’s here so we can get everything for free.”

“Yeah, sure,” Yeri sighs as she picks up a glass of water, thinking if she should drink some aspirin with it too, “Just  _ please  _ get over here,” She says and starts to drink the water alone. She might need the aspirin at a later time if Irene and Seulgi keep going on like this.

Dahyun and Chaeyoung emerge from their pots, groaning as they stretch their backs out, and help each other stand up. Yeri snickers at how weird the sight must be from afar--

“YAAAAH!” Irene’s signature scream pierces through the whole restaurant, and Yeri chokes on her drink.

“Why are the plants moving?!” Seulgi panics with Irene.

“Stealth 100,” Jisoo shoots finger guns at Dahyun and Chaeyoung, cackling, “How did you both not notice?!” Jisoo all but guffaws at Irene and Seulgi’s dumbfounded expressions.

Yeri facepalms.

They’re a match made in heaven.

  
  


Yeri opens a memo on her phone.

_ Attempt #1 - Fail _

_ Note: DON’T let Joohyun do the asking _

She closes it as soon as she finishes typing, contemplating on whether she should add unnie at the end of Joohyun’s name, but decides against it since she doesn’t deserve that level of respect tonight. Yeri didn’t think the night could get even worse until she sees Jisoo dragging Seulgi towards the grand piano with an obviously jealous Irene sulking in her seat.

“So Tzuyu was right…” Chaeyoung mumbles with Dahyun subtly nodding in agreement before the latter calls for another waiter, immediately ordering more food before Yeri actually throws her phone at someone.


	3. Attempt #2

“Yeri, this is not going to work,” Irene sighs tiredly, watching Yeri pace around her room like an impatient dog. 

It’s been a few days since her date gone wrong with Seulgi, and Yeri’s already pacing around her room discussing her other ideas because she’s  _ still  _ the ‘Ultimate Matchmaker,’ and Yeri blames the entire thing falling through on her.

Okay, Irene thinks, she’s probably not completely wrong, but the full blame couldn’t be on her.

Right?

After all, Seulgi’s the one who brought Jisoo with her.

“Seulgi’s just either really dense, or she’s pretending because she doesn’t like me back, okay?” Tumbles out of Irene’s mouth automatically as she watches Yeri’s continuous pacing.

“We  _ will _ make this work, Joohyun!” Yeri whips her head to look Irene in the eye. The leader is too taken aback by how determined the maknae is, not even realizing the lack of respect she’s been addressed with.

Yeri crosses her arms and huffs.

“Look, I knew the first one wasn’t going to work,” Before Irene can even react, Yeri’s already readied a clicker and her presentation from out of nowhere, “We really just wanted free food.”

“You  _ what _ \--”

“But anyway,” Yeri ignores one fuming Irene and presses next, “We’ve, well, mostly me, have come prepared with contingency plans. And because I’m the best friend you’ll ever have-- because I  _ refuse _ to be called your daughter after that embarrassing date-- and the next one will be at this cute arcade that opened last week!” Yeri exclaims excitedly.

“What!? The next--” Irene interrupts herself as soon as her mind processes the rest of Yeri’s words, “Are you out of your mind? I’d never go to an arcade--”

“Exactly!” Yeri grins, “Which is why Seulgi will ask you out instead!”

“And how’s that going to happen?”

“Did you mean when? Because it’s gonna happen right about--”

As if on cue, Irene’s bedroom door creaks open. Yeri grabs her laptop from the bed and then jumps into Irene’s pile of neatly folded laundry.

“Unnie,” Seulgi peaks in through the tiny gap she opened, “Can I come in?”

As Irene’s just about to say no, Yeri throws her clicker at the leader’s foot, gesturing to just let Seulgi in as she burrows herself in the pile of clothes, messing up Irene’s hard work.

“Sure, did you need something?”

“I was just gonna ask if you wanted to come with me tomorrow to this cute arcade that opened last week,” Seulgi asks with a hopeful smile, “I know it’s not your thing, but I promise it’s gonna be really fun! You’ll win all the games there… and uh, it’ll just be the two of us. I know you hate surprises a-and you love your alone time, and yet I still brought Jisoo along without telling you...” She explains herself, scuffing her bare foot on the floor boards nervously.

As much as Irene wants to appreciate her crush’s sentiment, she instead uses this chance to glare at the pile of clothes that is Yeri because she’s sure that the maknae is snickering under the layers of clothes she’s buried herself into.

Nonetheless Irene can never say no to Seulgi, especially not when she does those eyes paired with that small smile. So as soon as Seulgi goes on another tangent, this time about all the fun things she’d enjoy in the arcade, she interrupts her with an affirmative.

And apparently, that’s all it takes for a wide grin to grow on Seulgi’s face as she says a happy, “Thank you, unnie! We’ll have so much fun, I promise!” while practically tackling Irene in a hug.

Seulgi’s going to be the death of her, she’s sure.

* * *

“Guys, is this character development?” Chaeyoung asks while looking through her binoculars as she spots Irene and Seulgi, alone together this time, enjoying the arcade.

“I think this is character development, bro,” Dahyun nods, content, as she watches Irene practically obliterate any game Seulgi introduces her to. The Red Velvet leader’s competitive streak is perfect for the arcade, Dahyun idly thinks to herself.

“Y’know, I didn’t think we'd be this successful this fast,” Chaeyoung comments as she puts down her binoculars.

“Please, it could’ve been faster. We just wanted free food for the first one, remember?” Yeri says confidently through her mic, “This one’s in the bag, and they’ll finally stop looking like depressed puppies.”

“Love that for you,” Dahyun mumbles as she munches on a bag of chips. Chaeyoung grabs at Dahyun’s arm, dragging them closer to Seulgi and Irene when they suddenly disappear from her line of sight.

“Anyway, how did you get Seulgi unnie to ask Joohyun unnie?” Chaeyoung whispers into her own microphone, cautious about her volume as they sneak behind Irene and Seulgi.

“One Park Sooyoung paired with one Son Seungwan are enough to both get through Seulgi’s density  _ and _ guilt trip her at the same time. You can guess who did what--” Yeri’s explanation is suddenly interrupted by Dahyun.

“Uh, how do we tell Seulgi unnie that those games are a scam?” The older of the trio asks as Seulgi longingly looks at the claw machines from the other side of the room.

“I thought Seungwan unnie disowned you because you said gang gang, or was it because of yeet--” Chaeyoung tries to interject, but fails when Yeri’s voice grows louder than hers.

“We can’t, Joohyun unnie has to win something for Seulgi unnie then,” Yeri decides to focus back onto their main task as she whips out to text Irene about the plan. At first, Yeri was fine to let her unnie take the reigns, but after the first failed date, the maknae’s not taking any more chances with Joohyun the useless lesbian

“It won’t be as romantic if they don’t,” Yeri continues, hitting send at the same time she finishes explaining herself.

“Yeah, but if they can’t win anything?” Dahyun asks, and Chaeyoung pouts at her partner for ignoring her too.

“But Irene unnie’s been winning everything. She can win this one too,” Chaeyoung says with certainty, and decides to stop sulking.

“The probability of winning at a claw machine is one in fifteen people though,” Dahyun points out.

“Well, then we’ll make them win,” Yeri says as she sees Seulgi eye the cute bunny plushie in one of the claw machines, “I’ll get Joohyun unnie to distract Seulgi unnie from the claw machines. Dahyun, open up the machine with the bunnies while that’s happening, and Chaeyoung go inside it while they’re distracted.”

“Sure,” Chaeyoung says casually, “Wait,  _ what?!” _

“How do I open the machine? I… don’t have tools?” Dahyun asks and looks at her hands, absolutely lost as she wonders about the logistics of opening up a whole claw machine without even a single screwdriver to help.

“That’s not the problem here!"

* * *

“Joohyunnie, I told you! You’re a natural!” Seulgi sends Irene a bright grin, brandishing the bucket of tickets Irene had won almost single handedly when Irene made it a mission to try to win every game she laid her eyes on.

“I was just having fun, that’s all,” Irene blushes at the attention, and sends Seulgi a genuine smile. She continues to try to hold said smile when she hears a loud retching sound from somewhere behind her, a migraine already bubbling at the back of her head.

Yeri promised she wouldn’t be here to interrupt her date too much, but she’s starting to doubt it. Not that she ever trusted Yeri’s word anyway.

Luckily, Seulgi doesn’t seem to notice a thing.

“I told you it’d be fun,” Seulgi says and nudges the older woman playfully as they walk around the arcade with their arms looped.

They came in at a weird hour so the place is (luckily) deserted, save for some more dedicated gamers and the occasional student who definitely should be doing their homework instead of playing. Not that it’s dangerous to be spotted together, Irene thinks, Dispatch would probably label it as a cute friendly date anyway.

“What about the claw machines?” Seulgi suddenly suggests, stopping them in their tracks and points to an array of machines, all filled to the brim with various items. Some were packed with stuffed toys, others with tickets, gadgets, you name it.

Before Irene can even respond, her phone vibrates in her hand, and Yeri’s voice is practically yelling in her hidden earpiece. 

“You can’t!” Yeri says rather loudly, “Not yet, go to the photobooth with her first,” The maknae says with confidence. Irene tries her best to hold back a sigh.

“But--” Irene accidentally answers back. Luckily, Seulgi’s too distracted to notice.

“Did I stutter?” Yeri says, her voice terrifyingly level, “Just trust me, unnie. You won’t regret it.”

“Oh, we could try the one with the bunnies!” Seulgi lights up all of a sudden, returning Irene’s attention to her, “They look just like you!”

“Um,” Irene tries to start, “Why, why don’t we go to that photobooth first?” The older woman flails her arm in the general direction of where she last saw it, trying to follow Yeri’s instructions piercing through her left ear. Seulgi cutely tilts her head, noting Irene’s nervousness.

“We-- we’ll take a long time trying to win in the claw machines, so why don’t we get some pictures to remember today before that?” Irene winces at her stuttering tone. Yeri cackles in her ear, and all she wants to do is strangle the girl.

“Take your time there, maybe even steal a kiss while you’re at it unnie!” Yeri’s voice resounds, the static making her evil laughter sound even worse than it already is. 

Irene winces, but Seulgi doesn’t seem to notice as she sends Irene a happy smile.

“Oh… I didn’t think of that!” Seulgi exclaims, the excited human teddy bear already dragging Irene towards the tiny photobooth. It’s a bit late when Irene realizes how close they’ll be once they get in, and she blanks completely while Seulgi continues to make conversation. 

“Good idea unnie, let’s take a lot of good photos. Yerim-ah will be so jealous that we went here without her!” Seulgi looks victorious, and Irene feels like she’s going to die.

Yeri snorts loudly when she hears Seulgi, and Irene steels herself for what could be half an hour of being pressed against the object of her affections in a miniscule photobooth. 

With a new resolve, Irene marches on, her tiny form making her little march look comical from a distance. She’ll make sure to survive this.

She can’t die without killing Yeri first.

* * *

“Okay, they’re in the booth!” Yeri exclaims and the rapper duo move quickly. 

“Uh, how do I open this,” Dahyun gestures to the brightly colored claw machine. Chaeyoung moves around the machine, investigating it as well.

“There’s a sticker here that looks like the instructions,” Chaeyoung says as she signals for Dahyun to look at it with her, “But it’s in Japanese,” Chaeyoung notes as she observes the characters on the sticker attached to the back of the machine.

“I don’t know enough Japanese to translate that,” Dahyun replies with a frown on her face. The two of them briefly stare at the Japanese characters until Chaeyoung suddenly gasps, an idea written all over her face.

Honestly, Dahyun isn’t so sure if the expression on her face entails a  _ good _ idea or not.

“Dahyun, just stand over there,” Chaeyoung gestures with her hand towards the center of the arcade.

“Why would I do that?” Dahyun asks with a curious brow raised.

“You’re a cute Japanese girl magnet,” Chaeyoung says bluntly, “Once a Japanese girl comes in, we’ll be able to open the claw machine in no time!” The younger woman looks like she’s just had an epiphany, but Dahyun, for once, doesn’t understand her enthusiasm at all.

She squints, “What are you talking about?”

“You really don’t know why Mina, Sana, and Momo were fighting that _ one _ time?” Chaeyoung looks at Dahyun incredulously. 

“What does that have to do with me--” Dahyun’s interrupted by a pair of arms wrapping around her from behind. 

“Dahyunnie!”

Chaeyoung blinks, unsurprised at the turn of events while Dahyun looks absolutely floored.

“Sana unnie, what are you doing here--”

“We don’t have time for questions right now,” Chaeyoung quickly cuts off a panicking Dahyun, “Sana unnie, please help us!”

Sana grins happily, nodding along to Chaeyoung’s quick string of words as she hugs Dahyun tighter.

* * *

“Go! Irene unnie’s already getting the printed pictures from the booth!” 

Dahyun tries to forcefully push the rest of Chaeyoung’s body through the claw machine’s opening. Sana’s right beside her, trying to help out as well as she holds onto the key of the machine she’d managed to charm off of one of the arcade’s staff instead of reading the ‘instructions’ that the rapper duo found.

“I’m trying here!” Chaeyoung screams back. Dahyun whips her head to see Irene and Seulgi already rounding the corner and going back to the claw machines.

“I have an idea, but you won’t like it,” Dahyun says, wiping the sweat off her brow as she steps back to prepare herself. She signals for Sana to step back too.

“What is--” Chaeyoung is unable to finish her sentence when she’s suddenly winded out by a strong kick to her ass.

“OW!” Chaeyoung yells as her head hits the metal of the claw machine.

“Dahyunnie, you’re so strong!” Sana smiles at Dahyun, biting her lip, “Are you okay Chaeyoungie?” The Japanese woman suddenly adds, but her dreamy tone doesn’t match her words.

“Bro, how could you do this to me?!” Chaeyoung yells as soon as she’s able to get up and see Dahyun through the glass of the claw machine, feeling absolutely betrayed.

“You’re in and they’re here, shh!” Dahyun says, and Sana quickly locks the machine closed as they make their escape. Chaeyoung can hear muffled steps as she sinks herself into the mountain of bunny plushies.

* * *

“Is Chaeyoung in?” Yeri asks as soon as she finds Dahyun and… Sana? crouched behind some of the other claw machines, a good distance away from Irene and Seulgi who’re inserting tokens into the claw machine.

“Yep,” Dahyun says, huffing, “It was a lot of work. We couldn’t have done it without Sana unnie here,” Dahyun smiles gratefully at Sana. 

“A-anything for you, Dahyunnie,” Sana says charmingly, but Yeri didn’t miss her stutter.

“Why’re you here anyway--”

“Guys, how am I supposed to get out of here?” Chaeyoung’s muffled voice resounds from their earpieces, interrupting Yeri’s question.

“We’ll think about that later,” Yeri says dismissively, “Let unnie win after a few tries so it looks realistic,” Yeri rests her knuckles under her chin as she watches Irene go at it with a determined gaze.

“Yeri, what time does this place close again?” Dahyun suddenly asks while Sana’s arms wrap around Dahyun’s form like a snake, “It’s kinda late,” At that, Yeri opens her phone to check the time.

“Oh shit,” Yeri mutters under her breath, “In fifteen. Chae, just let her win now!”

“Minutes?” Dahyun asks, but the duo’s focus quickly changes to the bunny claw machine suddenly spitting out rabbits forcefully out of its hatch.

“Unnie, you did it!” Seulgi cheers as the bunny plushie plops out of the hatch. Almost automatically, the trio’s attention shifts back to Irene and Seulgi, “You’re amazing!”

Irene smiles widely, “It’s for you, Seulgi-ah.”

“Thank you, unnie,” Seulgi says sincerely as she takes the plushie from Irene’s hands. “I should win you something too, but I think the arcade’s closing.”

“You owe me then,” Irene says smoothly, poking Seulgi. Yeri can’t help but feel sort of proud, but also sort of disgusted at the same time, “Let’s go home.”

“Sure,” Seulgi agrees easily, “I’ll win you the biggest plushie here,” She says happily as they walk towards the exit. Not long after they’re gone, the lights and the arcade suddenly shut off.

“So seconds then,” Dahyun says casually as she pokes Yeri in the darkness. “They must be very strict with the closing time if they didn’t notice us at all,” Dahyun continues as if they hadn’t just been locked in a tiny and dark arcade. 

The latter can only sigh as she sees that Irene’s suddenly disconnected from their call. She can only hope that means she’ll be confessing to Seulgi on their way home. If not, well… there’s plan C.

“Well, we aren’t exactly tall, y’know,” At that the bunny claw machine yells unintelligible complaints, most likely taking offense to Yeri’s words. “Anyway, we need to get out of here somehow,” Yeri says in a bored tone, ignoring Chaeyoung’s muffled yelling.

“Chae’s still in the claw machine!” Dahyun suddenly realizes, “Unnie, the key’s with you, right?” She turns in Sana’s arms to face her.

“Um… about that,” Sana giggles nervously. It makes both Yeri and Dahyun feel uneasy, “When you pulled me to run, I kind of, um, accidentally let it go...”

“Well, shit,” Yeri curses, contemplating their remaining options, “Call Jihyo unnie, she’ll probably know what to do.”

“We’re going to die,” Dahyun says immediately. Even with the lack of light, Yeri knows that Dahyun’s probably going even paler than she is already.

“At least it’s not Joohyun unnie killing us,” Yeri shrugs.  _ How bad could it be? _ She thinks. Nothing could be worse than an angry Bae Joohyun anyway.

“You have a point,” Dahyun shrugs in defeat, and whips her phone out defeatedly.

* * *

“Jihyo unnie...”

“Hello, Dahyun? Where have you both been? It’s so late! I told Yeri not to keep you both out for so long. Also, have you seen Sana? She left without a word, and she still isn’t back home! Anyway, tell us where you are and stay there. Jeongyeon and I will pick you up. No buts,” Jihyo spits her words out like a machine gun, her brows furrowing in worry.

“Why me?” Jeongyeon mouths, offended, pointing at herself while Nayeon slaps her arm, cackling.

“Chaeyoung’s…” Dahyun mumbles nervously when Jihyo finally stops her concerned nagging, “She-- Chae’s stuck in a claw machine… And we're locked in an arcade with Sana unnie and Yeri too...”

“She’s  _ what?!”  _ Jihyo feels her blood rise, but soldiers on with the most even tone she can muster, “I’ll be right there. You both better have a good explanation for this. Send me your location, now,” Jihyo commands and quickly ends the call.

“Wait... Joohyun unnie is going to kill us if Yeri isn’t home before her,” Jihyo mutters to herself before approaching Mina and plopping right beside her.

“Mina, you know how to open arcade machines, right?” Jihyo turns to look at their resident gamer seated beside her on the couch, leisurely tapping on her switch.

“Bold of you to assume I cheat at the arcade, or at all,” Mina puts down her game and crosses her arms with a pout, deeply offended by Jihyo’s question.

“You’re a sore loser though,” Nayeon comments and smirks smugly. 

Mina and Nayeon stare each other down for a few seconds.

“I may know how to get Chaeyoung out of there… and I may know how to pick locks as well," Mina admits instead, turning to look at Jihyo. Nayeon grins victoriously.

“That’s all I need to know. You’re coming with us,” Jihyo says with finality, “Jeongyeon, drive us there.”

“But you can drive too!” Jeongyeon complains before standing up and getting swatted in the butt by a playful Nayeon.

“You can drive faster, and Yeri’s locked in there too. I'll have to stall Joohyun unnie while we're on the way ,” Jihyo says, a plan already forming in her head, “Do you want Joohyun unnie to kill us?” The leader raises a brow.

At that, the three run to pick up the kids immediately. 


	4. Attempt #3

With Jihyo’s guidance, Jeongyeon’s drifting, and Mina’s hidden lockpicking abilities, everyone manages to arrive home in one piece with Yeri slamming her room shut literally a minute before Seulgi and Irene return from their walk home. 

Yeri makes it a point to find out what happened last night, (Yeri briefly wonders if anything particularly spicy happened since they had taken so long to get back home, but then again this was her useless unnies, so she highly doubts anything happened anyway) and quickly becomes disappointed as she takes a few notes down on her phone.

_ Attempt #1 - Fail _

_ Note: DON’T let Joohyun do the asking _

_ Attempt #2 - Fail _

_ Note: DON’T let Joohyun do the confessing _

* * *

“So you’re telling me,” Yeri tries to keep her tone as level as possible after she keeps her phone away to stare blankly at Irene, “You didn’t confess.”

Irene looks pretty intimidated, and Yeri’s suddenly thankful for Tzuyu’s tips on how to appear more threatening.

“Look, okay, Seulgi was so happy, and I didn’t want to ruin the night for her and--”

“Joohyun unnie!” Yeri yells, stomping forward, “I may be the Ultimate Matchmaker, but I can’t do any miracles if you’re sabotaging yourself!” The maknae huffs and stomps like a child.

Irene briefly thinks that she deserves that response, for once.

“Anyway,” Yeri continues suddenly, mildly startling the leader. She’s also slightly terrified at how quickly Yeri’s tone has changed, “Since you ruined a perfectly good plan this time, this is my last bullet.”

“After that, you’re on your own, unnie,” Yeri says with finality. It oddly feels like some sort of gameshow, Irene muses briefly.

The leader isn’t sure why she feels disappointed at the maknae’s words. After all, she didn’t want Yeri pressuring her to get a love life anyway.

  
Right?

Before she can ponder any further, Yeri’s already unrolling a large poster, and plastering it onto the back of Irene’s door.

“What the--” Irene looks at the giant print incredulously, “Why would you stick a full body poster of Seulgi  _ here!?” _ The leader wouldn’t dare say it out loud, but a full body photo of Seulgi during their  _ Bad Boy _ era with that whole ensemble is… more than tasteful. 

“You have to get used to facing her-- even though you’re with her all the time anyway-- so this is the best solution,” The maknae nods to herself, shaking Irene out of her thoughts.

“When Seulgi comes in here, she forgets to close the door all the time, so she’ll never see it!”

“Yeri--”

“And because this is our last attempt, I brought in some special guests,” Yeri grins crookedly. Irene sighs and wonders when she’ll ever be able to get a sentence in whenever she has conversations with the maknae.

“Dub!”

“Chaeng!”

“We are dubchaeng!”

“And what better way to woo a girl than with a song?!” 

Dahyun and Chaeyoung pose obnoxiously, looking like some of those characters in those anime that Yeri often binge watches.

“You can’t be serious,” Irene says flatly, staring at the two overenthusiastic rappers, still posed right in front of her.

“It’s a classic unnie!” Yeri tries to reign in her laughter as she watches Dahyun and Chaeyoung shiver slightly, trying their best to hold their position, “Just-- pfft-- sing to her while she looks at you from her tiny window,” She cackles loudly.

“KIM YERIM!” 

At that, Dahyun and Chaeyoung break their pose and end up laughing along with Yeri. Both rappers reach for Yeri’s raised hand for an attempted three-way high five. However, Dahyun and Chaeyoung get too close, and their heads crash against each other, sending them to the ground. Yeri clutches her stomach and cackles like a mastermind.

Irene massages her temples, wondering what went wrong when she raised Kim Yerim… One (disowned) Park Sooyoung flashes through her mind at the thought.

_ Ah. _

“Look, you guys already did the date part, and there was an obvious connection!” The maknae says when she finally catches her breath. Dahyun and Chaeyoung help themselves stand upright, and that’s enough to detract Irene from her thoughts. 

“Now all you really have to do is just tell her!” Yeri says with the same obnoxiousness as Joy would. It makes Irene shiver a little inside at how similar they’re becoming.

“Why do I have to sing to her from the outside?! We live together!” The leader argues.

“Even better!” Dahyun grins brightly, resting her hands on her hips, “She’ll think you put in the extra effort for it!” Chaeyoung happily continues. 

“It’s like Romeo and Juliet in musical form,” Yeri remarks, “Minus their stupid, overdramatic deaths, of course,” She says with a shrug.

“I--” A flustered Irene tries to come up with a response to Yeri’s ridiculous idea.

“Nah, just kidding. We’re just fucking with you,” Yeri says after a beat, thinking that Irene might’ve actually considered the dumb idea, “We aren’t gonna let you confess to Seulgi unnie like a _ boomer _ .” The maknae says with distaste.

“Yeah, we’re better than that!” Chaeyoung joins in happily.

“ _ Yeri-- _ ” Irene hisses. The maknae was treading on dangerous territory, but she had the appropriate amount of blackmail to fight back. So Yeri continues fearlessly.

“We’re all going to a norebang to party, and you better pour your heart out to Seulgi before the night ends,” Yeri says, Dahyun and Chaeyoung nodding from behind her.

Irene decides to ignore Yeri’s crass language for once, going along with Yeri’s idea before she thinks of something worse, “By we, you mean--”

“Add nine plus five unnie, you can do it!” Yeri says and guffaws. 

“I don’t have a daughter like you,” Irene lands her final move. She didn’t think she’d lose another daughter so soon, but alas.

“Too bad you can’t use that line anymore, because I disowned you first!” Yeri pokes her tongue out like the child she is.

“Yeri!”

“I have  _ receipts. _ ”

* * *

“Kim Yerim,” Joy says, staring Yeri down as they buy the things they need for the noraebang, “This may be your smartest dumb idea yet,” She says casually as she inserts a bill into a vending machine.

“I know, right?” Yeri puffs up with pride, “They’ll never think Seungwan unnie would betray them. She’s too nice,” Yeri beams mischievously.

“I’m sorry to burst your bubble, but what if they don’t? I’m not good at lying, you know,” Wendy admits worriedly, carrying bottles of drinks with both of her arms. 

If the vocalist thinks that Joy’s getting way too many drinks for them, she doesn’t say anything as she watches Joy grab yet another can of juice from the vending machine. It’s Yeri that stops Joy from inserting another bill, pocketing the money as soon as the older woman pulls it out of her wallet.

“Hey!” Joy huffs, harshly pushing Yeri.

“Why do you think I left them with Twice?” Yeri almost hits face first into a wall, but she ignores Joy, riling her up even more.

“I don’t know?” Wendy tilts her head like a puppy. Joy nearly squeals when she sees her small unnie.

Instead of attacking Yeri, Joy suddenly decides to wrap her arms around Seungwan instead, all the anger dissipating as she pulls the vocalist closer. The latter immediately flusters at the contact, but makes no move to pull away.

“Exactly,” Yeri says easily as she slides into the largest room, Joy and Wendy trailing behind her, “Like you guys, they’ll never see it coming.”

* * *

“I can’t believe you roped all of us to do this,” Jihyo huffs, glaring at Nayeon as they prepare for Irene and Seulgi’s arrival.

“What? It looks like fun-- what Dubu and Chaengie are up to with Yeri-- and how can you say no to Yeri?” Nayeon answers back, “If Irene doesn’t want her, I’m taking her,” The eldest says with finality.

“Nayeon, you can’t just take other people’s kids,” Jihyo sighs, exasperated.

“Watch me,” Nayeon smirks deviously. Her smile grows when Jeongyeon emerges from her room, “Jeongie, we’re adopting!”

“What?” Jeongyeon tilts her head, looking mildly disturbed.

“Yeri!” Nayeon excitedly shouts.

“Sure,” Jeongyeon shrugs casually, “She’s a good kid.”

“...You both can’t be serious,” A headache starts to bubble at the back of Jihyo’s head at the thought of taking care of  _ another _ child.

Before the couple can think of a retort, the doorbell rings and Sana gleefully ushers Seulgi and Irene into Twice’s dorm.

“Well, we better get this started,” Nayeon nudges Jihyo, who only frowns in response, “Live a little, it’ll be fun!”

“Irene unnie, Seulgi unnie!” Dahyun yells excitedly dashing towards the Red Velvet members. The lights suddenly flicker off, the fluorescent lights quickly being replaced with colorful LEDs coming out of a giant rotating ball.

“Welcome to the party before the party!”

* * *

Before Irene can even protest or look for Yeri-- because of  _ course _ things aren’t going to be this simple-- the whole of Twice suddenly crowd the living room, and loud music blasts through the speakers. 

“Why are we partying before going to the noraebang?!” Seulgi yells over Irene’s shoulder. She doesn’t seem mad, just curious as she dances happily to the beat of the music while Irene tries her best to stay serious.

“Fuck, we didn’t think of  _ why _ \--”

“Jeong, shut up!”

“Guys--”

“It’s tradition!” Sana yells loudly over Nayeon, Jeongyeon and Jihyo’s little argument, saving them from their little dilemma as she tries to dodge Dahyun’s flailing arms. She successfully dodges Dahyun, but Momo gets smacked in the face, and Mina’s choking on Dahyun’s long hair.

For some reason, Seulgi seems to accept that answer over all the yelling in the room. She doesn’t seem to mind the state of the other Twice members suddenly collapsing to the ground in pain as she drags Irene closer to the center of the room.

Seulgi takes a hold of both of Irene’s hands, looking at her with stars in her eyes. Or maybe Irene's just delusional.

“Dance with me!”

But how could Irene say no to that?

* * *

Irene doesn’t remember what happened, but all of a sudden, Tzuyu and Momo push her and Seulgi into a car, and suddenly, they’re flanked with Twice members left and right. Everyone’s trying to fit themselves in the minivan.

“If you can’t find a seat, you’re ooouuut!” Nayeon yells, seated shotgun with Jeongyeon taking the wheel. Seulgi seems unresponsive to anything, just smiling widely and blankly at the space in front of her. Irene is more than just mildly concerned for the object of her affections.

“Excuse me,  _ what?! _ ” Irene’s confused at Momo’s words until a weight suddenly lands on her lap.

She screams at the sight of Chaeyoug’s head on top of her lap, and she screams again when a leg suddenly sticks out by the side of her head.

“Mina, your legs!” She recognizes Sana’s voice grunting in slight annoyance.

“They’re there because you keep pushing me!” Mina argues back.

“Wait, don’t bend them that way!” Jihyo suddenly panics. Irene realizes belatedly that Jihyo almost  _ never  _ panics. Irene doesn’t want to check behind her, in fear of what she might see.

“Okay, let’s go! Dahyun, hang on up there!” Jeongyeon yells, smacking the car’s ceiling as she hears the car doors closing. Irene can hear the Japanese members yelling from behind her.

“Dahyun’s up there?! _ ”  _ Irene wants to throw Jeongyeon out of the car.

“Jeongyeon unnie, take the wheel!” A loud voice booms from above the vehicle.

“Jeongyeon, don’t take the wheel!” Irene yells back louder, paling at the thought of Dahyun on the roof of the car.

“It’ll be alright,” Is the first thing Seulgi says when she snaps out of her reverie, quickly finding and holding on to Irene’s hand. Slowly, Seulgi brings their joined hands to pet Chaeyoung’s head that’s still on Irene’s lap. The Red Velvet leader isn’t sure if the rapper is conscious.

For once, Irene doesn’t believe her as Jeongyeon suddenly slams the gas pedal.

* * *

Irene doesn’t know how she survives.

She doesn’t know how Dahyun survived, she doesn’t know how she got here, she doesn’t know how Jeongyeon ran three red lights without getting caught, she doesn’t know  _ anything.  _

“I told you it’ll be alright,” Seulgi says with a smile as she helps Irene out of the minivan. The leader is still in a state of shock from the night’s previous events, following the younger woman mindlessly.

The Twice members excitedly chat with one another. Seulgi occasionally joins their conversation, and they all chat as if nothing happened at all. Irene just doesn’t know anymore. She doesn’t realize that she and Seulgi are being pushed towards the karaoke rooms as they walk.

Yeri never explained the plan to her this time, so she has no idea what to expect when Wendy emerges from one of the karaoke rooms instead.

“Hey, you guys are finally here! Come on in!” Wendy welcomes them with a bright grin as she quickly approaches Irene and Seulgi. Twice stampede their way into the room Wendy just came out of, and Irene suddenly hears Yeri’s signature evil laugh before the door is slammed shut.

A nervous feeling bubbles up in her stomach at the sound of it.

“Seul, Joohyun unnie,” She calls, “I know you guys wanna party, but I left my phone in one of the other booths earlier. I’ve been trying to look for it, but I really can’t find it anywhere,” Wendy says with a pout.

“Did you ask Sooyoung or Yeri to call it?” Irene asks.

“Yeah, but I think it ran out of battery,” Wendy’s pout deepens, “Help me?”

Irene doesn’t know why her gut tells her not to trust Wendy’s words, but Seulgi’s already beat her to it.

“Sure,” Seulgi agrees easily, “I’m sure it’s in one of these rooms somewhere!”

Irene thinks Seulgi might be too kind for her own good. But when Irene’s suddenly pulled into the direction Seulgi’s headed towards, she finally realizes that they’ve never let go of each other from the car.

The leader can feel her neck heat up in embarrassment. Wendy saw all of that--

“Hey Wendy!” Seulgi’s led them both to one of the smaller booths. It’s Wendy’s phone face down on the ground at the corner of the room. Irene can tell that it’s unmistakably Wendy’s as it has a Polaroid of Joy without make up behind its clear case. 

“We found your phone!” Seulgi says loudly, hoping that Wendy can hear her. As soon as Seulgi takes the phone from the ground, the sound of a door being slammed shut and locked could be heard. Irene jumps at that, and quickly lets go of Seulgi’s hand.

“Hey!” Seulgi yells, distracted, “Wannie’s phone is fully charged! She lied to us!” Seulgi pouts.

Irene’s already by the closed door, trying to turn the knob, but to no avail. Her movements get more frantic as Seulgi quickly makes her way behind the leader. The room is tiny, and it doesn’t take more than two strides for Seulgi to reach her destination.

“Unnie, what’re you doing?” Seulgi asks, “Are your hands slippery?” She follows up when she watches the older woman struggle with the door knob.

“No, Seulgi,” Irene tries to keep her tone level, “Seungwan trapped us in here.”

* * *

“I told you they’d never see it coming!” Yeri yells and cheers, sharing a high five with Chaeyoung and Dahyun successfully. 

In the center of the room, Jihyo’s belting out notes with Nayeon. Sana, Jeongyeon, and Momo are in one corner of the room, mixing all the drinks they could find into one glass. Wendy looks at the sight with some concern, but averts her gaze to respond to Yeri.

“Yeah but I had to sacrifice my phone!” Wendy complains, “They better not touch my Sooyoung polaroids,” She huffs.

“Baby, the real thing’s sitting right here, and you’re complaining about that?” Joy says with a smirk, and Wendy practically tackles her to the ground with a grin. Yeri’s smile quickly falls.

Okay. Nope. This is why she never asked for their help in the first place. Yeri stands up quickly and transfers to sit beside Mina and Tzuyu. She breathes a sigh of relief. It’s nice to be on the peaceful side for once. Tzuyu raises a brow but says nothing as she browses through the songbook.

“What now, though?” Dahyun asks curiously. The rapper duo quickly followed Yeri to the other side of the room as soon as they witnessed Wendy pouncing on Joy.

“Well, they’ll have to deal with their own shit and we won’t let them out until that happens,” Yeri explains, “And you have to deal with yours too or else we’ll do the same to you guys too,” She shrugs, casually drinking her soda.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Dahyun says, but her cheeks are reddening rapidly.

Chaeyoung suddenly appears right beside Dahyun and bends to look like that one spongebob meme.

_ “I dOn’T kNoW whAt YoU’Re tAlKiNg AbOut,” _ Chaeyoung says in an obnoxious voice.

“I really--”

“Dahyun--”

“Shut up, we know you do,” Tzuyu suddenly enters the chat, slamming the songbook shut and the three quickly shut up. Mina gets up to join Nayeon and Jihyo’s annoyingly flawless singing.

“It’s… complicated, okay?” At that, everyone raises a brow, “It’s me that’s the problem, not her,” Dahyun tries to explain.

“Yeah, we know,” Yeri rolls her eyes, “What do you think I’m here for?”

“ _ We’re _ here for you, bro,” Chaeyoung says, looping her arm around Dahyun's shoulders, “Now let’s go and get your girl.”

* * *

“Huh,” Seulgi hums as she plops down on the booth’s seat. Irene has no other choice but to sit beside her.

“Why would she trap us in here? Do they not want us to join them?” Seulgi asks, sounding quite sad. It makes Irene frown too since Seulgi actually wanted to go to a noraebang with everyone to begin with. 

“Well, I  _ can _ be a party pooper sometimes,” Irene shrugs, trying to make an excuse that isn’t  _ ‘Yeri’s just trying to get us together even though you really just wanted to party instead of whatever this is, sorry about that!’  _

“Yeri probably felt bad if she locked me here alone so I guess you were just dragged here along with me,” Irene tries to shift the mood. That’s what gets Seulgi to face her. The younger woman has an unreadable expression on her face as she looks at Irene briefly.

“Hey!” Seulgi suddenly raises her voice, causing the leader to jump a bit in her seat, “Unnie, you aren’t boring! Not at all!” The dancer says with fiery determination simmering in her eyes. Seulgi takes both of Irene’s hands and squeezes them reassuringly.

Irene has no idea where all of this is coming from as her face starts to heat up at the extended contact. Suddenly, Seulgi lets go of their joined hands and grabs the things splayed on top of the table in front of them. She hands Irene the extra microphone and flips open the songbook.

“C’mon unnie,” Seulgi suddenly says as she types in a string of numbers. It doesn’t even look like she actually browsed through the book with how quickly she’s typing it in.

“Let’s show them that we’re having even more fun than they are!” Seulgi exclaims and looks at Irene with shining eyes. They seem to be seated even closer than a while ago, and it’s probably because Seulgi had been reaching for some things that were on her side while she was still distracted.

The older woman forces herself to turn her head away to look at the TV screen instead.

“ _ Beyonce?!”  _ Irene blanches at Seulgi’s song choice, “I can’t sing in English, Seul!” She whips her head to see an amused Seulgi. Her grin is wide and happy as she flicks on her own microphone.

“It’s okay, we can dance to it if we can’t remember the lyrics!” Seulgi’s quick to pull Irene to stand up with her.

“Bring the beat in!” Seulgi yells in English as the lyrics of the song start to show up.

Irene shakes her head, smiling at Seulgi trying her best to sing and dance to  _ Love On Top _ . Watching Seulgi’s pure, unadulterated joy is what makes her finally let go. She can get back at her members later.

“If you don’t get a perfect score on this, I’m choosing the next song!” Irene yells excitedly and moves to grab a tambourine. She shakes it noisily, attempting to play it to the beat.

“You’re on!”

* * *

“Hey Sana unnie,” Dahyun tries to act casual, “Do you wanna sing something with me?” She asks just as the Japanese woman is about to down the monstrous concoction that Jeongyeon hands to her.

“You want to sing with me? Really” Sana points at herself in disbelief. Dahyun feels a little pang in her chest when she sees Sana’s shock, it’s as if the Japanese woman never would’ve thought that Dahyun would’ve chosen her for a duet.

“Yup!” Dahyun fakes her enthusiasm to rid herself of those thoughts, “Do you wanna choose the song?” She offers.

At that, Sana immediately gets up and pushes the mysterious, bubbling brown drink back to Jeongyeon’s hands.

“Hey! You were the one who lost the bet, Minatozaki!” Momo complains while Jeongyeon huffs, but Dahyun doesn’t hear them. Neither does Sana.

“Sorry, the love of my life wants to sing with me and all of you are irrelevant now.”

Dahyun tries to ignore how her ears heat up at Sana’s words. She tries even harder not to faint when Sana, despite her usual aggressively flirty demeanor, gently guides her towards the center of the room by the small of her back. The Japanese woman manages to get Wendy and Jihyo to hand their microphones over after hogging it for almost the entire time. Nayeon, Joy, and Mina pout at getting their turns taken away from them, but are quickly placated after Sana promises to buy them more drinks after. Once Sana hands over the other microphone to Dahyun, she turns to look at her with an eager look on her face.

“I know you offered to let me choose the song, but what does my Dahyunnie want to sing with me?”

Dahyun opens and closes her mouth uselessly like a fish out of water, with her index finger up and frozen midair. The pale woman seems to pale even more as Sana waits patiently for her response.

Chaeyoung, Yeri, and even Tzuyu look concerned at their paling friend.

“I think my bro just died,” Chaeyoung whispers.

“You think?” Tzuyu says blankly, “She’s never going to respond at this rate.”

“Don’t worry,” Yeri says as she starts to reach for the karaoke machine’s remote, “I got this.”

* * *

Irene’s not sure how it’s come to this.

By this she means being pressed against the backrest of the couch, with Seulgi staring intensely at her. Their foreheads are almost touching, and they can feel each other’s tired breaths from all their jumping around earlier. The karaoke machine has long been silent, the screen only flashing its usual bright lights. It’s the only thing giving the dark room some form of lighting. 

They both got distracted earlier when Seulgi suddenly tripped and crashed against Irene’s form, both of them landing harshly on the couch. They landed in a compromising position and well…

Irene really doesn’t know how it’s come to this.

In a daze, she reaches out to wrap her arms around Seulgi’s neck, smoothing out the creases in the dancer’s shirt as her hands travel to the back of her neck. She can feel the shivers going down the dancer’s spine, and the small hairs on her neck stand.

Seulgi’s sharp eyes stare back into hers as the younger woman’s hands slowly travel down to her hips. Their knees bump into each other a bit, but Irene fixes that by straddling the dancer’s lap.

Their breathing slowly synchronizes.

  
Irene takes one last breath and leans in.

“AAAAAHHH!”

“WHY ARE YOU RUNNING?!”

The door slamming open, and loud yelling startles them both. Chaeyoung and Dahyun topple over each other by the now open doorway. Seulgi and Irene jump away from each other at top speed, and the dancer ends up kneeing the table. Seulgi hisses at the pain, and Irene's hand instinctively moves to soothe the injured knee by rubbing circles over it.

All of them are too stunned to move.

That is until one screeching Yeri comes into the picture, quickly being trailed by both Joy and Wendy.

“Are you all kidding me right now?!”


	5. Attempts #4, #5, #6 (Pt. 1)

“Don’t talk to me, I’m mad,” Yeri says with her phone much too close to her face as she lies down in the middle of Joy’s bed spread out like a starfish. Joy snorts, wondering how bad Yeri’s eyesight is.

It’s been a day since the unfortunate noraebang incident, and Yeri’s still sulking over it. When they got home last night, Yeri immediately took off to her room and hadn't spoken to any of them until… well, now. Joy isn’t so sure when and why Yeri decided to get out of her room and occupy her bed, but at least she’s talking now, the vocalist muses.

But it’s not like Joy can’t understand where Yeri’s coming from. Despite her bravado, the maknae  _ did  _ think those plans through. The amount of times she and Wendy have caught her awake late into the night drafting up scenarios while facetiming Dahyun, Chaeyoung, and consequently Tzuyu-- since they all stay in the same room-- have been countless. Joy sighs at the sight of Yeri rapidly tapping on her phone. She almost snorts when the maknae suddenly throws her phone across the room with a dumb expression on her face.

“You’re lying on my bed. In  _ my  _ room,” Joy finally responds as she drops her full weight on top of Yeri, “You don’t get to tell me what to do.”

Joy can see Yeri’s phone on the ground from her position on the bed. She wonders how the device isn’t damaged yet, with how many times the maknae’s thrown it around. 

“Unnie!” Yeri whines, her voice muffled by the sheets, “Get off of me!”

“I’ll get off if you tell me why you’re so mad about this,” Joy says poking Yeri in the ribs. That gets the maknae’’s short arms flailing around to reach for Joy, but she’s clearly in the superior position since Yeri can’t even reach her, “It’s not like you to hold onto things for so long.”

“I’m not mad at Joohyun unnie or Seulgi unnie,” Yeri says, “They were doing great. Disgusting, but great,” Yeri adds and Joy snorts again, having seen the live footage directly from Yeri’s phone.

Joy finally moves off of Yeri, settling beside her on the queen-sized bed. Yeri takes a deep breath and exhales loudly. The older woman isn’t so sure if it’s because she needed air from being crushed, or if it’s just her exasperation at what happened last night.

“I’m mad at Dahyun,” Yeri says finally.

“Ah,” Joy nods solemnly, “Yeah, okay. That was bad.”

Joy recalls everything crystal clear, she had a front row seat to the whole tragedy after all.

* * *

_ Yeri’s idea was simple enough: ask Sana to sing a duet with you, she told Dahyun. Joy was sitting by the couch, taking sips of her drink as she watched them discuss. The normally confident rapper only managed to nod shakily as Chaeyoung and Tzuyu mercilessly pushed her into the fray wobbling like a newborn fawn towards Sana. _

_ She managed to ask Sana for a duet, but it was clear that she hadn’t thought of what to sing. Shamelessly, Yeri decides for them by snatching the remote and placing Twice’s own song, Say You Love Me on with a shit-eating grin on her face. She sees Dahyun glare at Yeri, while Sana’s flushes and her smile grows wide. _

_ Joy’s laugh almost overpowers the music that comes on when she sees Dahyun’s face, but luckily Sana decides at that moment to pull the younger woman into her own arms. The Japanese woman pulls the microphone out of Dahyun’s hands and drops it on the couch behind them, forcing them to share Sana’s. _

_ It’s at this point that Joy reaches over to Yeri for a high five. They both laugh at Dahyun’s reddening face, and she’s sure everyone else finds the scene hilariously adorable with Dahyun’s red face and flaring nostrils as she tries to sing. Sana remains somewhat confident as she holds Dahyun. But Joy can see right through her facade.  _

_ Before the karaoke can even finish processing their scores, Tzuyu suddenly comments. _

_ “She looks like she’s about to make a run for it,” But Yeri doesn’t hear her. She’s completely vanished from her place on the couch and Joy’s late to realize that Yeri’s already moved to stand in front of both Sana and Dahyun with a wicked grin on her face. _

_ Oh no. _

_ “Not on my watch,” Chaeyoung says and gets up to stand by the door. _

_ “So Dahyunnie,” Yeri says loudly, catching everyone’s attention, “Great duet! But I’m sure there’s something you wanna tell Sana unnie, right?” _

_ “Oh, you do? It’s okay if you don’t want to tell me now, Dahyunnie,” Sana says smoothly, as she tilts Dahyun’s chin up to look her in the eye, “We can always talk alone, later.” _

_ “I, um, uh--” Joy can already see the poor girl start to hyperventilate, “Y-Y-- You’re such a great singer unnie! I-- I need to go to the toilet now, like it’s real bad, so uh, bye!” Dahyun stutters out and makes a dash for the door.  _

_ Chaeyoung tries her best to block Dahyun from escaping, but the pale girl is running at full speed. Joy squeezes her eyes shut and winces when the pale girl collides with Chaeyoung. _

_ “Ow!” Chaeyoung’s on the ground, and Dahyun’s already pulled the door wide open, “Dahyun, hey!”  _

_ “WHY ARE YOU RUNNING?!” Chaeyoung yells, hot on her trail as if she hadn’t been tackled to the ground just a minute ago. Tzuyu facepalms. _

_ Joy doesn’t need to see that the bright smile on Sana’s face is gone. From the corner of her eye, she can see Mina guiding Sana so that she could take a seat on the couch. _

_ “Shit, fuck!” Yeri curses loudly, pacing as she nearly pulls her hair off. Joy’s pretty sure it’s Jihyo and Wendy that yell ‘Language!’ at the same time, “Does she know where the bathroom is?!” _

_ “Oh shit,” Tzuyu curses, and that’s what gets everyone to glare at Yeri. Tzuyu never curses, after all, “She’s probably going to try all the doors.” _

_ “What?!” Nayeon gasps, “No! Come on, they’re already about to kiss!” _

_ “Excuse me, they’re what--” Joy can’t stop her words from tumbling out as she looks at Nayeon holding a phone to her chest. _

_ “You planted cameras in their room?!” Jihyo looks absolutely livid. _

_ “Yeri did!” Nayeon throws the phone towards Joy’s direction, nearly hitting a sleepy Momo square in the face as it lands on the couch. The phone’s impact is what wakes the dancer up completely. _

_ “Just to check on them!” Yeri throws her hands up, surrendering. Wendy’s already massaging her temples. Joy wishes she was closer to her so she could join her disappointment for the maknae. _

_ “The two of you, come with me,” Jihyo says firmly as she looks at both Yeri and Nayeon. _

_ When Joy looks at the phone thrown on the couch, she already sees Dahyun and Chaeyoung on the ground right in front of Irene and Seulgi. _

_ So much for that. _

* * *

“I don’t get how she goes from saving Chaeyoung from her own dumb decisions to completely useless in the presence of Sana unnie,” Yeri sighs, holding her head with her hands as Joy comes back to her senses, nodding in agreement.

“You know how it works,” Joy says slowly, “Wendy was like that with me before you pushed us together, remember?”

“Yeah, yeah…” 

“Give them time to sort things out at their own pace-- yes all four of them-- and give yourself time to do your own things. You can’t always expect them to jump when you tell them to,” Joy says sagely, “Don’t you want your own love life too, O Great Matchmaker?” The vocalist teases the maknae.

“Shut up,” Yeri says, but there’s no bite to her words, “I’m already working on it.”

“Oh?” That gets Joy’s attention almost immediately as her brows go up.

Yeri rolls out of the bed and picks her phone up from the ground.

“As you can see, I’m seeing someone right now,” She says, waving her phone.

Joy squints, seeing a casual selca of Yeri and then...

“Is that-- You can’t be serious.” 

Yeri only nods victoriously.

“ARIANA GRANDE?!” Joy yells, and she’s lucky that both Irene and Seulgi have schedules today.

“Yep,” Yeri smirks, “Mission: Thirst trap Ari was a success!”

Joy’s jaw drops.

“Thirst trap-- This, this can’t be real,” Joy’s at a loss for words. Instead of trying to say anything more, she swipes Yeri’s phone from her hand. The maknae huffs, annoyed, but lets Joy read through some of their messages.

“Look, we already have cute nicknames for each other,” Yeri shows off when Joy spots the nicknames and emojis that clutter the ends of their messages, “But that’s none of your business.”

Yeri takes her phone away quickly, and walks away from a dumbfounded Park Sooyoung.

“Anyway, good talk. I’ll see you, unnie,” Yeri waves a V sign before she leaves Joy’s room with a wide grin on her face, slamming the door shut.

“Uh, yeah,” Joy’s still absolutely lost. 

_ Ariana Grande?!  _

“See you,” She says to no one.

…

..

.

“What the fuck.”

* * *

It’s a few weeks later when Joy decides to annoy Irene by barging into her room without knocking, and then plopping down on her bed as Irene folds her laundry. The door closes loudly behind her, and the vocalist wrinkles her nose at the large poster of Seulgi stuck to it. The poster is a… tasteful choice, but it’s still a disturbing, almost life-sized poster of her unnie.

“That’s Yeri’s doing,” Irene adds when she sees Joy’s face. The vocalist only nods as she averts her gaze from the poster.

“You should confess to Seulgi unnie,” Joy says loudly.

“Did Yeri put you up to this?” Irene asks with a questioning brow raised.

“No, I’m just saying we saw what happened in there,” Before Irene can even interrupt, the vocalist continues, “You really just have to confess,”

“Look. I’m trying, but it’s really hard,” Joy doesn’t believe Irene’s words at all.

“Are you now?”

“Yes,” Irene places the neatly folded shirt on top of the pile of already folded clothes, “Would you like to hear how all of it went?”

“All of it?” Joy raises a brow.

“I tried three times,” Irene sighs, looking away from the vocalist.

“Holy shit.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> have i mentioned that im bad at counting? 
> 
> so yes, this isn't the end for tragic seulrene : ' )


	6. Attempts #4, #5, #6 (Pt. 2)

The first time Irene tries to confess to Seulgi is a few days after the noraebang.

Irene enters Seulgi’s room silently, watching as Seulgi sticks her hand deep into a pringles can, her eyes sparkling as she watches something from her laptop placed right in front of her. It’s an adorably soft sight to see compared to her fierce looks whenever Irene has to look at the back of her door. She still doesn’t have the heart to remove the poster, it feels like a waste to throw it away. To throw all of Yeri’s efforts away.

She’ll get this right this time.

“Seulgi-ah,” Irene says softly, worried that things might be awkward after everything that almost happened last night. They hadn’t been awkward at some of their other schedules before this, but Irene knows Seulgi has always handled work professionally. Personal agenda were always put aside while they were working to avoid conflict. But the leader’s not so sure about now.

Seulgi perks up at the sound of her name, but doesn’t seem shocked to see Irene in front of her either.

“Unnie!” Seulgi’s smile is wide, and Irene’s heart feels like it’s about to explode from that alone, “D’you wanna watch the Level Up Project with me? We never managed to finish season 3 together,” She offers as if nothing happened to them, with her right hand still stuck in the pringles can.

“Sure,” Irene agrees easily-- because she’ll take whatever she can at this point-- and Seulgi automatically scooches over to give Irene some space beside her on the bed.

“Sorry, it’s kind of hard to see the screen because there’s no more space,” Seulgi apologizes as she places the pringles can on the ground, wiping her hands with tissues. 

Seulgi’s room couldn’t fit a larger bed given its size-- because it wasn’t even supposed to be a bedroom until the dancer offered to take it so everyone would be more comfortable-- and Irene doesn’t see why Seulgi even needs to apologize to her for trivial things like this.

“It’s fine,” Irene tries to reassure her with a hand on her arm.

“Hmm,” Seulgi stares at Irene for a few seconds. They’re so close that Irene can see some of the chip crumbs around Seulgi’s mouth.

“I have an idea!” Seulgi smiles widely, and Irene can’t help but smile back, “Move in front of my laptop.”

Irene follows and soon enough, Seulgi’s shuffles backwards and strong arms soon wrap around Irene’s torso, and her head rests on the leader’s shoulder.

“Now we can both watch!” She says and lightly squeezes Irene’s waist. 

The leader tries her best to act natural and comfortable, trying not to think of Seulgi pressed against her form, with her legs around hers. She tries not to think about how the dancer’s larger stature engulfs her in a warmth that she never wants to leave. She tries not to think how domestic this all is, although this is how they’ve always been.

It’s just so much more different from before, now that Irene has feelings for her.

Irene reaches an arm out so she can press play, and they get lost in their own world as they watch their own show, continuing from where Seulgi left off.

It’s both her and Seulgi on the screen, with Seulgi offering Irene to watch a movie with her, much like earlier. Virtual Irene argues with virtual Seulgi, knowing that the latter’s already about to play a horror movie that she doesn’t want to watch.

“Seulgi-ah,” Irene nudges Seulgi’s knee with her hand as they watch themselves arguing on screen, “That was mean, you know,” She says and pouts involuntarily.

“It wasn’t that bad,” Seulgi says, and Irene can feel the movement of Seulgi’s head on her shoulder, “I protected you, after all.”

Irene rolls her eyes, and turns her head to look at Seulgi smiling softly at her. Their faces are much too close once again, but it feels different from the last time they were in this situation.

“Yeah you did,” Irene hums and decides to finally act on her feelings, “I love you, Seul-ah.”

Seulgi pauses at Irene’s words, looking at the leader and Irene is immediately worried. 

She feels like she shouldn’t have done that so suddenly.

“Aww,” Seulgi says, moving her head off of Irene’s shoulder as she leans her arms back instead of keeping them on Irene’s waist. The leader feels dread pooling in the bottom of her stomach. Where has she heard that tone before?

“I love you too, unnie! You’re the best!”

_ Fuck. _

* * *

* * *

“Tragic,” Joy deadpans as she watches Irene nearly crumple a newly ironed dress.

“Shut up. Do you want to hear the rest?” Irene huffs and throws the dress into the unironed pile of clothes frustratedly.

“Okay, I’m sorry. That just… sounded exactly like Dahyun after Sana confessed.”

“I know,” Irene shivers, “I’m still traumatized by it… But I tried again anyway.”

* * *

* * *

The second time Irene tries to confess to Seulgi is just a few days later after the tragedy. She’s not so sure if this counts as an attempt.

They’re celebrating the news of Irene and Seulgi’s upcoming subunit in a bar. Irene doesn’t even remember how Yeri managed to convince all of them, but she’s sure that Joy’s probably her accomplice this time around.

Honestly Irene didn’t have any plans to try confessing again so soon. But she was in a particularly good mood that day with the announcement, and with the help of a few shots of tequila, Irene had the liquid courage she needed.

Yeri, for the first time in a while, cackles in her seat as she watches Wendy spit out a cocktail right back into its glass. The main vocalist’s face contorts into absolute disgust and Irene finds her eyebrow movements highly amusing. The leader can’t help but throw her head back and laugh as loud as Yeri, smacking Seulgi’s shoulder in the process.

“What the fuck, unnie?!’ Yeri’s yelling and laughing so hard she might fall out of her seat. 

Seulgi’s barely holding on to her consciousness as she giggles like a child, her face almost falling into her glass. Irene wraps an arm around Seulgi’s shoulders, trying her best to keep the dancer upright.

“That was absolutely  _ disgusting!”  _ Wendy comments in a mix of Korean and English, “That  _ thing _ was more gross than any of my pick up lines!”

Joy smacks Wendy in the shoulder, Irene’s sure that Joy only  _ looks _ sober at this point as she stares unabashedly at her girlfriend in public, “Hey! None of your pick up lines are bad!” She exclaims.

Yeri and Irene share an eyeroll.

“All of your pick up lines are bad!” Yeri counters as she pours whatever drink she can reach into their empty glasses.

“I can do worse,” Irene says, her usual filter gone as she downs another shot of tequila, “Wanna hear it?”

“You can’t be as bad as Wan-ah!” Seulgi manages to say as she reaches for another glass.

“Sure, hold on,” Yeri says as she pats herself down, a poor attempt at looking for her phone.

“I’m n--not letting you record this, Yeri!” Irene slurs as she pulls Seulgi closer to herself. She’s so out of it that she doesn’t even feel flustered when she asks Seulgi if she’d like to hear her pick up line.

When Seulgi accepts, Irene nods. The leader’s eyes are blank for a moment until she finally finds her words.

“Seulgi-aah,” Irene drawls out, her last few brain cells struggle to speak coherently as she continues.

“Are you a fart?”

“PPFFFT!” That seems to snap Seulgi awake as she snorts alcohol out of her nose. Yeri guffaws and ends up throwing her phone straight into Joy’s face.

“A WHAT?!” Wendy yells, absolutely hysterical. She doesn’t notice her girlfriend’s unconscious form smacking face first onto the table.

“YAH!” Irene lets go of her hold on Seulgi and slams the counter with her hands, “Let me finish!”

“Okay, HAHAH-- what’s the-- the line?” Wendy manages to ask in between labored breaths. That prompts Irene to turn to face Seulgi with a drunken grin.

Seulgi mirrors her, already struggling to keep a straight face.

“You’re a fart, Seulgi-ah,” Irene tries to say smoothly. Keyword is  _ tries, _ “Because you blow me away.”

Seulgi tries to politely laugh at Irene’s pick up line, but she fails immediately when a snort involuntarily comes out. She instead reaches for the strongest drink on the table and starts to chug it.

“I DON’T HAVE A MOTHER LIKE YOU!” Yeri yells, cringing as she tries to run away from their group. Her drunk ass doesn’t get her very far, and the maknae trips over herself after attempting to walk straight.

“My cheesy lines are good… Sooyoungie, my cheesy lines are good...” Wendy’s mumbling to herself as she holds her head in one of her hands. She looks like she’s laughing and crying in shame at the same time, petting Joy’s hair with her free hand.

Needless to say, none of them came home sober that night.

* * *

* * *

  
“Unnieee! I was there too,” Joy whines.

“You fainted on us,” Irene deadpans.

“Yeri threw her phone at me!” Joy yells indignantly, “My forehead was bruised! It’s  _ still _ bruised! My beautiful face is ruined… Unnie, I’m the victim here!” She huffs, crossing her arms and stomping.

Irene only laughs at her, poking the healing bruise on Joy’s forehead.

“Besides, that doesn’t even count as an attempt!” Joy counters as she glares at Irene.

“Okay, okay, maybe it doesn’t. This last one does, though,” Irene says and sighs.

* * *

* * *

She’s not giving up just yet.

Maybe she hadn't been clear enough, Irene thinks as she scribbles on her scented stationery. After all, they've known each other for so long. Saying 'I love you' isn't new to them. Though uncommon, they do reassure each other with these words when they were at their worst.

It was a lot more common for them to share these three words during their trainee days, when everything was uncertain, and when they only had each other. They say it a lot less to each other now, now that they have three more people to love and five minute talks to share their struggles everyday.

But Irene doesn't want it to stay this way, no matter how scared she is of what might happen in the future. She needs to let Seulgi know that her I love yous to her are so much more than what they were before. This is why, Irene thinks, she could confess in a more traditional way, by writing Seulgi a letter.

Irene honestly isn't the best writer out there, but she'll try for Seulgi. She's already too far into it, and she's already embarrassed herself by asking Wendy, their resident sap, for help.

Luckily, Son Seungwan isn't like Kim Yerim or Park Sooyoung who would poke fun at Irene's dilemmas before eventually helping her. Wendy's a kind soul who genuinely tries to help anyone in need, and Irene has no idea why someone like her fell for someone like Joy despite Sooyoung teasing her relentlessly before they were together.

Unfortunately, all she got from Wendy was advice to be completely honest, clear and straight to the point. She even told her to avoid deep metaphors because Seulgi may not understand them as she usually takes things at face value. That, Irene understands completely, but she wanted her letter to at least be a bit more… special.

So she adds and removes some things here and there. It takes a few hours, but when Irene's satisfied for the day, she neatly folds the 5th and hopefully the final stationery she’ll waste in her efforts to write the perfect letter. The leader simply leaves it on her desk before preparing for bed. She'll have to find an envelope for it tomorrow.

Irene's fatigue from yesterday leads her to forget about getting an envelope, and the letter completely.

That is, until one clumsy Kang Seulgi stumbles upon the scented stationery one day.

“What’s this?” Seulgi says out loud, wondering how a piece of paper has made its way to Irene’s usually pristine bedroom carpet. 

She first looks around, checking for signs of Irene’s presence in the room so she could ask about it. However Irene is nowhere to be found; she isn’t even by the hallway when Seulgi checks through the open doorway. The dancer’s curiosity gets the better of her, and before she can even think, her body’s already bending down to retrieve the pink paper.

"Hmm,” Seulgi mumbles, to herself as she holds onto the paper, slowly unfolding it as soon as she realizes that it isn’t blank. The dancer, upon inspection, quickly notices the handwriting that’s unmistakably Irene’s.

Seulgi starts to read the contents of the stationery, and she feels her face heat up at the words. But before she can finish reading, someone interrupts her.

“Seulgi?” Irene’s distinct voice asks, and Seulgi can hear Irene’s soft footsteps as the leader pads into the room.

Seulgi whirls around to face Irene, “Hi unnie! Sorry, I went straight in... I thought you’d be in here already since you called me.”

“It’s-- It’s fine,” Irene stutters as soon as she spots the pink piece of paper in the dancer’s hands.

It’s now or never.

“Have you read it yet?” Irene bites her lip, and her own arms are quick to wrap around herself as she avoids Seulgi’s gaze.

“Oh, this?” Seulgi gestures to the paper she’s holding, “Yeah, sorry unnie. I saw it on the floor and got curious...” The dancer looks down at the paper, folding it back 

gently.

“Well? Wh-- what do you think?” Irene musters out, braving to take a peek at Seulgi’s face. She really can’t take any of this anymore. 

“Oh, is that why you asked me to go here?” Seulgi pieces together. Irene’s cheeks redden, and she can only answer with a meek nod as she looks back down on her feet.

“Unnie,” Seulgi calls as she steps forward, inserting the folded paper into Irene’s coat pocket to hold onto her shoulders. The latter tenses at the contact, but looks back up to see the dancer smiling brightly. Seulgi doesn’t hesitate as she begins to massage Irene’s shoulders.

“You don’t have to be so shy with me, okay?” Seulgi says, “We’ve been through everything together, after all.”

“Okay,” Irene tries to calm down, but she can’t seem to let go of the breath she’s holding as she waits for Seulgi to continue.

“Unnie, you know,” Seulgi breathes out in awe, “These lyrics you wrote are amazing…”

“...Lyrics?” Irene squeaks out. She squeezes her eyes shut.

“Yeah! Maybe you should bring it up to PD-nim and we could use it for our next album, or for our subunit too!” Seulgi nods enthusiastically.

Irene feels something crack inside of her chest.

“Yeah… okay,” Irene looks up, moving Seulgi’s hands away from her shoulders. She steps back.

“I’ll make sure to bring it up next time,” Irene mutters in a watery voice, with her arms wrapping around herself, “Thank you, Seul-ah."

"It's no problem at all, unnie," Seulgi smiles, but it doesn't seem to reach her eyes. 

* * *

* * *

  
  
“You cried after she left?” Joy asks, and winces immediately. She hadn’t meant to ask her that bluntly. Irene seems to understand before she can whip out an apology, however, and she simply waves Joy off to explain herself.

“It-- It’s just so frustrating, you know? I don’t know if she’s just playing it off because she doesn’t want to hurt me, or if she really doesn’t get it,” Irene sighs. Joy’s already moving to help Irene sort out her clothes.   
  


“It makes me want to just give up, you know? I mean, there’s nothing wrong with us being friends like always anyway…” Irene gets up to get another basket of freshly laundried, unfolded clothes. Joy frowns at Irene’s tired form and takes the heavy basket out of her hands.

“Sooyoung-ah… you don’t have to,” Irene says, taking the basket back into her arms, “I can handle the rest.”

"Are you sure?" Joy's frown deepens.

"Yeah," Irene lets out a deep exhale, "Just give me some time, and this'll be all sorted out," Irene puts the basket down beside the folded clothes.

“...Okay.” 

Joy doesn’t believe her completely, but she knows better than to push Irene.

For now, Joy thinks, this is enough.

Joy leaves the room, dialing a familiar number on her phone.


	7. Attempt #??

To say that Wendy’s just worried about Seulgi would be a complete understatement.

The vocalist watches as Seulgi buries herself further into her sheets for the nth time this week. Seulgi’s room is small, and so is her bed, so Wendy doesn’t have much of a choice but to make room as the dancer squirms, alternating between positions on the mattress. 

Usually when Seulgi gets into moods like this, Wendy leaves her be as she usually bounces back in a few days or so. The vocalist understands that everyone needs time alone every now and then. And if that doesn’t work, Seulgi’s quick to pour out her frustrations to either her or Irene.

  
But she hasn’t been okay for a while now, nor has she told anyone anything yet.

“Hey,” Wendy starts, patting what she thinks to be is Seulgi’s back from under the thick blankets, “Did you and Joohyun unnie fight?”

Seulgi shakes her head.

“Did something happen during practice?” Wendy tries again. Maybe the performance practices were taking a toll on her. Seulgi can be a perfectionist at times, after all.

Her bear-like companion shakes her head again. This time she groans too, sounding much like the animal she’s often compared to.

“Irene unnie likes someone,” Seulgi mumbles, “She didn’t tell me who it is… I thought we were best friends, but she’s been hiding it from me.”

The dancer sounds so sullen and heartbroken about it that Wendy almost forgets how Joy recounted Irene’s attempts at confessing to Seulgi. The vocalist pinches the bridge of her nose, Seulgi couldn’t see her anyway.

She couldn’t be  _ this _ dense, right?

“Seulgi-ah,” Wendy starts, unsure how to continue, “Why don’t you talk to her about it?”

“I can see it in her eyes, Seungwan-ah,” Seulg kicks the blanket off of herself, nearly hitting Wendy square in the face.

“She looks scared, like she doesn’t want to talk about it… So I change the topic every time because I don’t want to press her. But I can’t help but feel hurt that she doesn’t trust me enough to tell me,” Seulgi says and shifts again.

Wendy wants to smack her face into the wall. Why’d Seulgi have to be so dense yet so considerate at the same time?

“Have you ever thought that she might like you?” Wendy decides to test the waters as she nudges Seulgi’s form with her foot.

She hears Seulgi sigh deeply, “It’s not me, unnie.”

“Why not?” Wendy tilts her head.

“Because I’m not good enough for someone like her for her to even look at me in that way,” Seulgi laughs self-deprecatingly, “Joohyun unnie deserves the best...”

Wendy frowns, but before she can even say anything, Seulgi starts talking again.

“I… don’t really want to talk about this anymore, Wan-ah,” Seulgi says softly, “I’ll be okay, I just need some time alone, you know?”

Wendy feels her heart break a little at how choked up Seulgi’s voice sounds.

Now she understands why Yeri wants to throw both of them into a room until they settle their problems.

* * *

“So Seulgi doesn’t think Joohyun unnie’s confessing to her because it just  _ can’t  _ be her, and Joohyun unnie thinks that Seulgi knows, but is silently rejecting her,” Yeri says, looking between Joy and Wendy.

“See, I am right! And because you two didn’t listen and help me earlier, everything’s a mess now, ” Yeri throws her hands up into the air and decides to stare up at the ceiling.

“Tell me about it,” Joy sighs, and reaches into Yeri’s bag of chips. The maknae’s too into her own theatrics that she doesn’t notice Joy stealing her food.

“So what do we do now?” Wendy asks, taking some stolen chips from Joy to plop them into her own mouth.

“So you’re both suddenly on my team now?” Yeri says and suddenly whips her head to face them. Wendy inhales the rest of the chips in Joy’s hands in an attempt to hide the stolen goods. The vocalist coughs, but makes sure no crumb escapes as her nostrils flare.

“Yes because this is depressing to watch when they’re so close, yet so far,” Joy replies and sighs, ignoring Wendy pulling on her sleeve.

“Okay, great,” Yeri shrugs, “You both owe me now because I’m right and because you both stole my chips.”

“HAAAH--” Wendy suddenly slouches forward and heaves loudly, coughing, “I-- I thought you didn’t see that,” Wendy says with a hoarse voice, patting her chest and heaving from eating too many chips at once.

“You can’t chew chips quietly, unnie,” Yeri sticks her tongue out and checks her phone as soon as she hears it ring, “I’m not old and deaf like you guys. Anyway, let’s go meet up with the rest of the team while you buy me whatever I want on the way.”

“Hey!” Wendy complains.

“They're’ just chips!” Joy yells at the same time. But before Joy and Wendy are able to get another word in, Yeri interrupts them.

“Do you want VIP tickets and backstage passes to Ari’s next concert or what?” Yeri raises a brow, not even bothering to look at them as she responds to her messages.

Wendy and Joy look at each other for a moment. When they turn to face Yeri, the maknae’s already holding up her phone, showing a selfie of Ariana Grande with a recent timestamp and a ton of emojis following the singer’s sappy message to Yeri.

“Did you want milk tea to go with that too?” Wendy asks.

“That’s more like it.”

* * *

Unsurprisingly Yeri, Joy, and Wendy find themselves inside Twice’s dorm. Both Chaeyoung and Dahyun welcome the trio as they settle in the living room to discuss new tactics. The rest of Twice pay them no attention as they go on with their usual lives, already used to their regular visitors.

“What if we get Seulgi to do the tiktok challenge,” Joy suggests, as everyone agreed not to drag Irene into this anymore. Yeri stares at her blankly.

“You know there’s more than one challenge on tiktok, right?” Yeri answers back and Joy rolls her eyes.

“I know, I was getting to that!” Joy pouts, “You know, the tiktok where you kiss your best friend--”

“Nope!” Dahyun’s the first to shoot down the idea, interrupting Joy, “Absolutely not!”

Everyone raises a brow at Dahyun’s sudden rejection.

“I was gonna say no too, but why are you yelling?” Yeri questions the rapper. Chaeyoung looks just as confused.

“I--” Dahyun stutters, “It could hurt them, you know?”

“You sound like you speak from personal experience,” Joy tries to comment casually, but it seems to hit the mark.

“I…” Dahyun looks away, “I  _ may _ have tried it, but I never got to the part where I had to kiss Sana unnie…”

Yeri rubs her temples and sighs.

“You didn’t do the challenge at all then,” Joy groans, exasperated.

“It’s the thought that counts!” Chaeyoung defends her best friend, “But yeah, you should really stop panicking at the last minute, bro.”

“It’s not my fault Sana unnie’s just  _ so _ \--” Dahyun starts to panic, and Yeri rolls her eyes.

“Dahyun unnie,” Yeri suddenly speaks seriously in a low tone, slouching forward with her hands under her chin, “Y’know… there’s only one way to solve your problem. Do you want to hear it?” Dahyun nods eagerly despite being interrupted, and moves closer to hear what she has to say.

“Sometimes,” Yeri starts speaking in English, “You gotta be bold,” Dahyun nods, taking her words in slowly.

Wendy covers her face with her hands, and starts rubbing it out of frustration. Meanwhile Joy groans, muttering a,  _ ‘not this shit again’ _ as they watch Yeri. Chaeyoung looks at the Red Velvet members, absolutely confused as she watches Wendy rub all the makeup off of her own face.

“Just rock the world…” Dahyun nods solemnly again, moving even closer.

“BOOYAH!” Yeri suddenly jumps up from her seat and yells, startling Dahyun. 

  
“YAAAH!” Dahyun shouts, her voice bouncing off the walls of the dorm as she falls from the edge of the couch. Joy and Chaeyoung can’t hold their laughter while Wendy’s quick to check if the rapper is alright.

“DAHYUN-AH!” A concerned voice booms from the other side of the dorm along with thunderous footsteps, and with that alone, Yeri knows her job here is done.

Sana almost trips on the way to the living room, but when she finally arrives she manages to unceremoniously shove Wendy out of the way to get closer to Dahyun. Yeri stands up and moves away from the couch along with Joy. Wendy frowns as she gets up, rubbing her butt after suddenly being pushed to the ground. Watching the action, Chaeyoung briefly worries about the fact that Wendy may have just stained her own pants with makeup.

“Dahyunnie! Are you okay? You aren’t hurt, are you?” The Japanese woman asks worriedly, checking for any injuries as she helps Dahyun get up.

“I’m fine, Sana unnie, I just--” Dahyun’s reassurances to Sana are quickly stopped with Chaeyoung’s sudden loud coughing from behind Sana.

When the rapper looks Chaeyoung’s way she can see her mouth the words, “You gotta be bold!” Along with Yeri.

“A-actually, I think I hurt my ankle,” Dahyun says, wincing at her own words and not at the nonexistent ache on her ankle, and Sana’s eyes are wide, concerned for the younger woman.

“That must hurt, Dahyunnie. Let me take care of you,” The Japanese woman pouts as she redirects Dahyun to sit back down on the couch.

“Um, uh, m--maybe you could take me to my room instead?” Dahyun asks suddenly, and Yeri tries to hold back a snort, “It really hurts…”

“Okay. Just hold on to me,” Is all what Sana says before sweeping Dahyun off of her feet literally to carry her bridal style back to her room.

Chaeyoung’s only able to do a slow thumbs up of encouragement as Dahyun’s taken away from the living room by one miraculously careful Sana. Everyone’s jaws drop simultaneously.

“What the fuck just happened,” Joy mutters as soon as she manages to recover from the shock.

“I can’t believe that worked,” Wendy adds.

“I didn’t think my bro could be  _ that _ bold,” Chaeyoung nods, proud of her best friend as she holds back her own tears of happiness. She reaches out to Yeri for a fistbump and mutters a tiny ‘booyah’ when their fists meet.

“My work here is done,” Yeri says and nods to herself, as if that was exactly what she was expecting to happen from her (bullshit) words of encouragement.

“Anyway, we’ll come back to see what happens tomorrow, or something,” Yeri decides as she makes her way towards the door, still slightly out of it from how easy that was, “I’m tired, and I want more milk tea.”

* * *

It’s in the middle of a good evening of talking to her girlfriend of three hours when Yeri’s rudely interrupted by a certain unnie. She sends Ari a quick selfie of her pouting before she switches to view her latest message.

_ Irene unnie: Yerim-ah, how do you post on this app? _

_ Irene’s Not-Daughter: idk what app ur talking about, i cant see ur phone lmao _

_ Irene unnie: the new one with the fans??? _

_ Irene’s Not-Daughter: … unnie all sns have our fans on it _

_ Irene unnie: the one thats harder to post on than ig _

_ Irene’s Not-Daughter: … _

_ Irene’s Not-Daughter has set Irene unnie’s nickname to Grandma Irene. _

_ Irene unnie: KIM YERIM! _

_ Irene’s Not-Daughter: I’ll just call you, u should be thankful _

Yeri sighs, slowly explaining to Irene how posting works. Once she feels like her unnie understands it, she ends the call. The maknae wonders why Irene always decides to ask her whenever her questions have something to do with technology. Wendy and Joy are perfectly capable of using technology. Why not them?

The maknae scratches her head. It’s two in the morning, and for some reason, Irene wants to post something on her instagram account. Despite saying that she  _ wasn’t  _ posting on instagram earlier, her unnie apparently didn’t know that instagram is just the same as ig.

Yeri wonders how they’re even living in the same century.

Shaking her head, the maknae decides to check her post. What could be so important that Irene just had to call just to post it at this hour?

When Yeri finally goes over to Irene’s instagram account to see her latest post, she nearly drops her phone on her face. Luckily, her quick reflexes manage to roll over and dodge the deadly weight as it tumbles down on her comforter.

Yeri blinks twice, picks up her phone and sticks her face closer to the screen.

It can’t be, right?

“Did unnie just…” Yeri mutters to herself in disbelief.

“Come out?!”

* * *

“YERIM-AH!” Irene’s voice booms at the same time Yeri’s about to have a full on mental breakdown and the maknae immediately stumbles towards the door.

“Unnie, what the fuck?!” Yeri yells as soon as she swings the door open, “SM’s going to kill us!”

“I posted the wrong picture!” Irene yells back.

“Why do you have that on your phone?!” Yeri’s equally as panicked.

“I wanted to try editing--” Irene tries to explain herself.

“UNNIE, DELETE IT NOW!” Yeri grabs a hold of Irene’s shoulders and shakes her unnie.

“HOW?!” Irene yells just as loudly. Yeri snatches Irene’s phone and quickly deletes the leader’s latest post of Seulgi’s bare face-- a picture she has never even seen before-- with a  _ very _ personal caption edited on the picture itself. Yeri feels her stomach sink when she realizes that it’s already managed to garner a few thousand likes.

Not like this.

Sometimes, you gotta be bold, Yeri thinks. But not  _ that  _ bold.

“Fuck!” Yeri yells, no longer caring if everyone in their dorm is awake now, “Unnie, we’re fucked!”

“I know!” Irene says as she messes up her own bedhead, “Argh, why are phones so hard to use?!” Irene quickly makes her way to Yeri’s bed, sitting on it and burying her head in her hands.

“What _ were _ you gonna post--” Yeri tries to ask, but the door creaks open again to another new visitor.

“Unnie...” Yeri can hear Irene’s sharp intake of breath as soon as she recognizes the owner of the voice. The maknae wants to melt into the ground and not be a part of this whole thing.

“I… Is-- is this true?” The sleep mussed dancer asks meekly, holding her phone with two hands. There’s no doubt in Irene’s mind that Seulgi’s referring to the photo she just posted and deleted.

“Seulgi-ah, I--” Irene quickly shifts her gaze to look at Seulgi, not knowing how to explain herself this time around.

“I’ll see myself out,” Is what Yeri suddenly says before shuffling out of her own room, “Don’t come out until you’ve talked about it,” The maknae manages to add with the last remnants of her sanity left before closing the door shut.

Irene swallows nervously, anticipating the worst.

* * *

For all of Irene’s attempts at confessing to Seulgi, this is not how she thinks it would go.

Not with Seulgi nervously standing right in front of her, like she’s only discovered the depths of her emotions just now, through a picture with cheesy edits on top of it that she didn’t mean to post.

“Unnie, I…” Seulgi tries to start, “Do you really like me in that way?” She asks. Irene avoids her gaze, but steels herself to just tell her the truth.

“Yes. I’ve been trying to tell you, but you never really noticed... or maybe you just pretended not to,” Irene shrugs and schools her face to be as neutral as possible, picking on a loose thread on Yeri’s comforter. Before she can even continue, Seulgi’s surprised voice cuts their brief silence.

“You have? When?  _ What-- _ ” Seulgi’s voice sounds so stunned that Irene has to look back up. When she sees the dancer’s eyes blown wide and jaw dropped speechless, she realizes that Seulgi hasn’t noticed  _ any _ of her attempts.

Not until tonight, but she wasn’t even trying to do that!

Irene wants to smack her face against the nearest wall.

“Yes,” The older woman breathes in, “The first was when we were watching Level Up Project together in your room. The next was when we were drunk and I said that terrible pick up line, and the last time was when you read the letter I wrote for you, the one you thought were song lyrics,” Irene says in one breath, both of her hands balled and resting tensely on the tops of her thighs.

“I…” Seulgi’s still speechless, and for all their years of being best friends, Irene doesn’t know how to read her current expression.

Seulgi takes a deep breath.

“I thought you would never like me like that, unnie,” Seulgi chuckles self-deprecatingly and looks away from Irene, briefly resting a hand behind her neck.

“Why not?”

“Because you’re Bae Joohyun,” Seulgi says and exhales loudly, as if that made for a good explanation. When she only receives a look of confusion from Irene, she hesitantly continues, “And I’m just… me, you know?”

“And what’s wrong with being you? With being Kang Seulgi?” Irene asks with a frown, “You’re nothing short of amazing too, even if you don’t believe it yourself.”

The older woman fixes her gaze on the dancer, stepping forward. The determined stare she fixes on the latter doesn’t ease the Seulgi’s nerves one bit.

“I understand if you don’t return my feelings, but I’m still your best friend, and I won’t let you think any less of yourself,” Irene says with conviction as she takes another step forward. Seulgi tries to step back further, but is only met by a closed door.

“Wait a second--” Seulgi tries to interrupt Irene, but to no avail. 

“Seulgi-ah, you’re still one of the greatest people I’ve had the pleasure of knowing. Whatever bad things other people say about you are because they jump into conclusions and don’t know any better. Have they spent years training and just being with you? Did they bother to get to know you first? I don’t think so,” Irene huffs and stomps towards Seulgi to grab her hands.

“Seulgi-ah, you are amazing and I love you for just being you,” The leader says confidently, with her fiery gaze unwavering, “I’ve realized it doesn’t really matter if you return my feelings or not. I just really wanted to let you know that I care for you, okay?”

“Unnie…” Seulgi sniffles and quickly swipes at the tears quickly forming at the corners of her eyes with her sweater paws. 

“Are you okay?” Irene’s immediately concerned and moves to cup the dancer’s face, wiping away her tears.

“You--” Seulgi stutters, “You didn’t even let me say anything,” The dancer pouts. At that, Irene suddenly realizes what she’s done and quickly removes her hands from Seulgi’s face and jumps back, as if her own hands were on fire. Well, her face definitely feels that way now, Irene thinks as she avoids any more unnecessary contact.

“Joohyunnie,” Seulgi’s pout deepens, as her cheeks puff out and the leader isn’t so sure if she can take any more of it without spiralling into a whole gay mess.

“I like you too,” Seulgi smiles widely despite the tear tracks still visible on her cheeks, “And I’m sorry if I never realized, even once, that you were trying to confess to me. It’s just, I didn’t ever think you liking me was ever possible...” She shrugs.

“Seulgi-ah, if you could just see what I see...” Irene sighs before shaking her head, “Actually, I’ll make sure you will,” She says and nods, sure of herself.

“I’ll take you up on that then,” Seulgi returns a small smile.

The pair no longer needed any more words to understand each other after that. Irene and Seulgi begin to gaze at each other lovingly, simply enjoying each other’s presence at three o’ clock in the morning.

* * *

“Are they seriously just going to stand there and stare at each other? It’s been three minutes, how useless can they be?! Dahyun unnie isn’t even that bad,” Yeri groans in frustration, scratching her head as she watches Irene and Seulgi from her phone screen.

“Maybe they’re building it up, y’know?” Joy suggests, but shrugs at her own reasoning.

“For three whole minutes?” Yeri raises a brow. Joy just throws her hands in the air defeatedly.

“Yeri… Why do you have cameras monitoring your own room?” Wendy asks as the three of them huddle closer to watch the useless lesbians from Yeri’s security camera feed on her phone.

“Because  _ someone _ has been stealing my snacks when I’m out filming my radio show. I wonder who that could be?” Yeri says loudly.

“Seulgi?” Joy answers innocently, fluttering her lashes. Wendy snorts, completely aware of the many snacks Joy’s managed to snag from Yeri’s room.

“Looks like I’m only taking four people to my girlfriend’s next concert,” Yeri mutters and rolls her eyes.

“I can buy you milk tea for the whole week,” Joy offers.

“For the whole month,” Yeri counters.

“Two weeks,” Joy doesn’t back down.

“Fine,” Yeri sighs as she returns her gaze to her phone.

Irene and Seulgi still haven’t moved, and Yeri briefly wonders if it’s her phone acting up as she restarts the app.

“Do I have to do everything around here?”

Yeri sighs when she realizes that the pair have literally just been staring at each other like lovesick puppies this whole time, and it’s not her phone that’s being a piece of shit. She may not have an awesome phone with an awesome camera, nor a long lasting battery life, but she’s observant enough to realize that the feed wasn’t lagging nor frozen with the subtle movement she could see from her two unnies. Groaning, the maknae gets up from Joy’s bed to go to her own room. Joy’s snickers could be heard as the maknae slams the door shut.

* * *

It doesn’t take too long for Yeri to yank the door to her own room open and stomp towards Irene and Seulgi with a plan to smack their faces together to get all of this over with. 

“Yeri, what are you doing here--”

“Yerim-ah--”

“This is my room! You literally have no right to ask me what I’m doing in  _ my  _ room,” Yeri huffs, making her way between the two lovebirds, “And just make out already, holy shit!” She yells.

Before her two unnies can complain even more, Yeri’s already practically thrown Irene in Seulgi’s direction.

“You’re welcome!” Yeri yells, the door slamming shut quickly after, not wanting to see her unnies go at it.

When Irene lands securely in Seulgi’s arms, and much too close to the latter’s face, she decides to just take Yeri’s advice. With the tips of her ears red, and her heart pounding, Irene pulls the front of Seulgi’s shirt to reel her into a heart-stopping kiss.

“Wendy unnie, I want screenshots for proof! I am the _ultimate_ _matchmaker_! I deserve everything!” Yeri yells as she flings open the door to Joy’s room.

“Yerim-ah… You do realize they might do more than just that in  _ your _ room, right?” Joy snickers and slaps Wendy’s shoulder as she watches Yeri bolt back to her room at a surprising speed. Wendy shakes her head and laughs with Joy.

“Keep it PG!” Yeri yells obnoxiously, slamming the door to her room back open, “I’M THE ONLY KID YOU’LL NEED HERE!”

“YAAH!” Irene screams and jumps out of pure shock, and even ends up biting Seulgi’s lip in the process.

“Ow!” Seulgi reacts almost instantly as she recoils from the pain of the bite.

“Seulgi, you’re bleeding!” Panic floods Irene’s system as she holds Seulgi’s face in her hands. Yeri’s just glad she’s averted the crisis.

“Didn’t know you guys were into bloodplay,” Yeri comments casually, not so subtly pushing the both of them out of her room, “Kinda gross, but I’m not Joy so I won’t kinkshame you,” She shrugs.

“KIM YERIM!” Irene yells, and Yeri’s lucky that her unnie cared more for Seulgi’s well being than ending her adopted daughter’s life at that very moment.

Slamming the door in their faces, Yeri sighs and falls into her bed, absolutely exhausted as she falls asleep almost instantly upon landing.

* * *

One chaotic week later, Yeri manages to convince their fans  _ and  _ SM Entertainment that Irene’s pretty gay instagram post on Seulgi’s bare face was just to hype up their subunit. SM even makes a little follow up teaser on Red Velvet’s official account following a similar approach with a sappy picture of both Irene and Seulgi to make things less suspicious. It’s miraculous that everyone takes her bullshit, and Yeri thinks that her bullshittery is so much of a talent that she could present it in a talent show and win. But then again, Yeri also thinks, Red Velvet is pretty gay anyway.

Especially during that  _ one _ time she slipped during an interview that almost sent Wendy into cardiac arrest as the only English speaker who understood what Yeri almost said before their interviewer saved her, but that doesn’t matter, Yeri muses. That may be the first and the last time she’d admittedly be thankful for a man’s intervention on what she should say next.

Yeri lounges casually on the couch, switching between texting on her phone and reading manga as she waits for lunch to be served.

“You know, you should be thankful for my existence,” Yeri says as she flips through her manga on the couch as Irene cooks, “I got you the girl  _ and _ I convinced everyone that your post was a teaser for your subunit.”

Irene only hums in response, the sounds of the pots and pans being moved overpowering most of her voice.

“Pay attention to me!” Yeri whines as she flaps her arms in an attempt to get the leader’s attention, not unlike a spoiled child, “I deserve money and power! I deserve everything!”

At that, Irene puts down the plates on the table.

“First of all,” Irene starts, and Yeri already knows she’s doomed but she pretends that she’s going to win this anyway. Kim Yeri lives like a winner and is a winner, after all.

“ _ I _ got the girl. Who was the one who posted the picture?” Irene raises a brow, looking at Yeri as she finishes setting the food down.

“Who was the one who covered up your gay ass after everyone saw it?” Yeri shoots back.

“Second, I  _ raised _ you,” Irene says pointedly, ignoring her question with a look that says her lunch might no longer exist if she tries to fight her, “ _ I _ deserve everything. Also, would you stop referencing Happiness like you were part of the music video?”

“...Fine. But I was there at exactly fifteen seconds! It was a prophecy of my greatness arriving to help all of your sorry asses _ , _ ” Yeri huffs and stomps towards the dining room. The maknae’s frown slowly disappears as soon as she realizes that Irene’s made her favorite dishes despite always complaining about Yeri’s strange taste in food.

“Sure, that’s nice,” Irene dismisses Yeri as they both sit down to eat, “Wash the dishes after you eat.”

“Hey! ” Yeri complains, puffing her cheeks at her unnie’s complete disregard to her little speech, but still quickly grabbing all the side dishes she could to put on her plate.

“I have a date with Seulgi after this... I can’t be late,” Irene says rather shyly. As much as Yeri wants to tease her for it, she fears for her lunch being taken away from her, “...She said she’d take me around Han River,” Yeri’s almost disgusted by the reddish hue that spreads across Irene’s cheeks.

“When did Seulgi unnie get a car... or a motorcycle?” Yeri asks as she picks up and inspects the kimbap that looks like it came straight out of a cookbook before shoving the whole thing in her mouth in one bite, savoring the taste. She deserves this, after all.

“I…” Irene suddenly looks pensive, “She actually didn’t tell me  _ how _ we’d get there.”

Yeri forcibly swallows her food, “You know, I don’t think we should trust her with planning dates…” Yeri says, “What if she takes you around on a two-seater bicycle?”

“If it’s Seulgi, I wouldn’t mind that,” Irene replies with a soft smile. 

_ Yikes _ , Yeri thinks as she sees how whipped her unnie is. She didn’t think she could get this sappy and disgusting this quickly. It’s literally been a week. One. Week.

“Oh you will once everyone recognizes the both of you _ and  _ posts pictures all over the internet,” Yeri remarks casually. As if on cue, the door opens, revealing a happy Seulgi waltzing into the house.

“Hey Yerim-ah,” The dancer greets her joyfully, ruffling the maknae’s hair and stealing a piece of kimbap from her plate. 

“My hair!” Yeri complains, “And my food! Unnie, why would you date someone like her?!” The maknae complains like a petulant child as Seulgi takes a seat beside her.

“Weren’t you the one trying to get us together anyway?” Seulgi grins and turns to face Irene, “Joohyunnie, are you ready to go?”

“Look, even the most perfect of people can make mistakes,” Yeri says but is mostly ignored as soon as Irene moves to kiss Seulgi’s cheek.

“I’ll just grab my purse and we can go,” Irene says and quickly makes a beeline towards her room.

“Disgusting,” Yeri mutters, but continues to feast on the many side dishes Irene had prepared for her, “Anyway, how are you going to take Irene unnie around Han River? You suck at driving, and I don’t think manager unnie would even let you borrow a car,” Yeri asks between chews as she waits for Seulgi’s answer.

“Oh well, I bought this really cool and really fast segway--” Yeri’s utensils drop from her hold, clattering loudly on her plate.

“You’re going to take Irene to Han River during the sunset,” Seulgi nods at Yeri’s words, “On. A. Segway, ” The maknae punctuates every word slowly.

“Yes?” Seulgi tilts her head, as if nothing’s wrong with the world, “Don’t you think it’s a great idea? We’d be standing closely together, but we wouldn’t need to really walk. And the segway I bought is really fast anyway, so we wouldn’t have to worry about getting caught--”

“I’m so done,” Yeri says as she stands up, holding a plate full of food in one hand, and her phone in the other as she brings it to her ear. She didn’t get them together as the Ultimate Matchmaker just to end up with this.

  
  


“Ari, please take me away from here,” Yeri mutters loudly into her phone as soon as her lover picks up. She can faintly hear traces of Seulgi and Irene’s conversation while Ari talks to her.

“Take you away from Korea?” Her girlfriend asks, just to make sure.

“...a segway?” Yeri can hear Irene’s voice.

“Yeah! The sunset would be nice while we’re on…” It’s unmistakably Seulgi’s voice as she goes on about the segway.

“Yeah, I can’t stand my parents. I have to move out,” Yeri replies, trying to drown out Irene and Seulgi’s horrifying conversation.

“Okay… That sounds great,” Irene says, and even Yeri can hear her reluctance. 

“Great, let’s go!” Seulgi gets up from her seat, and the two move to leave.

“Just take me away from here, please!” Yeri says dramatically.

“Yeri, stop being so overdramatic,” Irene moves into her line of sight with a sigh, taking the maknae’s phone, apologizing with what little English she knows to the caller and then quickly ending the call, “You’re not moving out of here until we meet your girlfriend properly.”

  
  


“I deserve better than this!” Yeri yells as the front door closes on her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and that's the end of this chaotic thing lmao. shoutout to segway master Ninna for absolutely nothing


End file.
